Ylisse High
by redgear3000
Summary: Somehow I (as in author 'I') manage to convince Chrom to become the Student Council President of our high school, Ylisse High. But we are met with a disturbing challenge... Gangrel is also running to become Student Council President! Join our heroes in scandals, romance, frog dissections, Presidential Campaigns, and so much more!
1. Chapter 1

8:15 a.m., I could have been asleep by staying home and pretending to be sick but instead here I was standing in front of a school with the words 'Ylisse High School' written above the double glass doors. Even though I could have probably somehow convinced my parents to let me stay home I didn't want to – because I actually wanted to be inside that building.

There were a lot of friendly people there who made the experience all the better: Lissa, a girl in my grade who was quite the social butterfly. She had blonde hair and green eyes, the complete opposite of my brown hair and eyes. When the year began, she was the one who introduced me to all her friends and from there I became friends with the whole interesting band. She had a brother named Chrom who was a year ahead of us. There were a lot of other people who I met, but to go into detail about all of them would require ten _long _pages, so I'll wait to introduce them.

Anyway, I walked into the building and was immediately found by Lissa. We had first and second period together so we often just met each other at the start of the day. Today, my friend was wearing a cute white skirt with a dusty yellow long sleeved v-neck sweater with a fluffy infinity scarf around her neck. On her lower half was black argyle knee-highs with brown loafers on her feet. She greeted me with one of her famous, contagious smiles.

"Hey, Teresa! You ready to tackle another one of Mr. Excellus' and Ms. Pheros' _boring_ lectures?" She wondered, even though the answer was obvious. I rolled my eyes sarcastically.

"As I'll ever be. I bet Mr. Excellus will torture us with a ton of sheet work again today." I sighed as we walked to our lockers, "At least Ms. Pheros' biology class seems to go by quickly – at least, I think so anyway; biology is fun."

Lissa stared at me in disbelief, "_Fun_!? What's fun about biology? All that icky talk about hearts and colons makes me sick!" I laughed at her reaction as we reached my locker first as it was only a hop-skip and a jump from the entrance. I retrieved my books for Ms. Pheros' class and quickly closed my locker after I got my things and tucked my kitbag away.

"Well, if you want to be a nurse, Lissa, you've got to learn about those kinds of things. Not only that, but you're also going to have to see some pretty gruesome things." I explained to her as we walked now to her locker. She sighed, frazzled.

"I know… but, I dunno, can't they just like censor that stuff? I don't want to be staring at that when I'm trying to learn." Lissa complained.

"Speaking of staring at all those things, we're supposed to be dissecting a frog today in her class." I recalled, "Looks like you're going to have to see those things _in order _to learn."

Lissa shrieked, "I totally forgot that was today! Nope nuh-uh, nadda; there's _no way_ am I cutting up a dead, stinky frog!" She turned around about to leave, but I caught a hold of her scarf before she could disappear in the hallways.

"Hey, you can't back down now. You're here, so you might as well come. Besides, if you want, I can do all the cutting. I've done it before, so I kind of have experience… but I did kind of squish up its brains a little bit last time." I said the last part abashedly.

"Ew! Teresa! You're not making it any better!" Lissa protested.

"OK, OK. I'll try not to do that this time. Let's just hurry and get to class." I laughed. With that, Lissa hesitantly came to Ms. Pheros' biology class. Ms. Pheros was a young intelligent woman with long blonde hair and strict blue eyes. She wore a light red blazer with a white dress shirt underneath which was buttoned up to her chin. She wore a black, knee-length pencil skirt and matching black pumps. She made one of the guys in my class, Virion, swoon, but then again, _every _girl made Virion want to swoon. One day he even began to flirt with Ms. Pheros, but it was in her contract not to go out with students. Not only that, but she had her eye on the Principal for quite some time – which everyone but Virion noticed.

Virion was a sophisticated man of whom I was acquainted with when I became friends with Lissa. He had light blue hair in a weird style, almost like he had an 'M' on top of his forehead. He always wore nice clothes because his parents were rich. Though, I always wondered why they sent him here when he could have gone to a more prestigious school in a foreign country. Then again, he explained that he was from a place across the sea from Ylisse, but why his parents chose _this _school for him, I couldn't answer.

Anyway, we sat in our seats which were beside one another, but on the other side of me was another person who I met due to Lissa. His name was Vaike and you couldn't have found a more muscle-headed, blow-hard in the world if you tried. He had blonde hair, almost similar to Lissa's and green eyes. He always wore his shirt open if it was a button up. The teachers always chewed him out for that kind of sloppy dress, but he didn't care. In fact, school disinterested him – he was only here for the sports opportunity it offered and the only reason he was in biology was so he could get his necessary five sciences to graduate. Even though he was a masculine guy, he was fun to be around because of his care-free nature.

"Ya made it, squirt!" Vaike acknowledged Lissa, leaning his seat back with his foot.

"If you're wondering if Chrom is here today, he is." Lissa immediately answered, looking around me to tell him. Lissa's brother, Chrom, and Vaike had this rivalry going on… if that was even what it was. One day, Vaike just _decided _he didn't like Chrom and so he competed against him in everything. Gym was always exciting because both guys were in the same class, which I bet the teachers regret.

"Hey, can't ya at least say hi when I greet ya?" Vaike wondered.

"I know you were going to ask that anyway, so I just skipped that part." Lissa explained.

I giggled at that, but I said in Lissa's stead, "Hi, Vaike."

"At least _someone _says hi around here!" Vaike stressed, looking right at Lissa who ignored him as Ms. Pheros stepped into the room. She began the class immediately and explained that we were going into the lab to do our dissection of the frogs. I looked over at Lissa as she went over lab rules and all that fun stuff and saw that she was nearly green.

Soon, Lissa and I were sitting in front of a frog that was strapped down in a metal dish. Its soft underbelly was facing us and it looked utterly defenceless, "So… do you think it's a male or a female?"

"I don't care! This is disgusting!" Lissa groaned.

"Well, all right, let's just find out, shall we? Hand me the scalpel Nurse Lissa!" I ordered like a doctor. An unlicensed doctor. Lissa grabbed the scalpel and handed it to my waiting hand. With that, I read where I was to make the incision and proceeded. Lissa was breathing down my neck, literally. She was so flipping nervous that she was breathing hard right on my neck. I paused and looked at her, "Do you mind?"

"Oh! S-sorry… I didn't even notice I was doing that." Lissa apologized, giving me space. I went back to cutting the frog up where it said to. Just then, another frog flopped onto ours, surprising me. Looking up, I noticed that Vaike was the one who had thrown his frog on ours.

"I don't know what the heck I'm doin', so would ya mind cuttin' up my frog too?" Vaike asked, "My partner ain't doin' nothing neither." Vaike stabbed a finger back to his partner which was Stahl who was barfing on the floor. Ms. Pheros rushed over to help Stahl to the nurse's office, but he tried to insist that he was fine, just as he barfed again. Stahl was a kind-hearted man who wore a lot of green for some reason. Today, he was wearing a plain green shirt that had a picture of his guy thinking of bacon. He wore plain blue jeans that were well-worn and had messy light brown hair like he never combed it.

"It's enough cutting up one frog, we're not cutting up two! Do it yourself Vaike!" Lissa shouted, grabbing Vaike's frog and throwing it at his face. The frog stuck to his face for a while, then slowly slid down his face, then falling on the floor with a squishy 'thunk!'.

Vaike's eyebrow twitched, "Why'd you do that?! I just wanted some help, is that so much t' ask?!"

"Yes! In five seconds, I'm going to end up the same as Stahl – adding anymore frogs to that will send me to the hospital!" Lissa protested. Just before the argument got out of hand, I jumped in.

"Lissa, you're not doing any of the cutting, so it doesn't really matter if I decide to cut up Vaike's frog too. Also, Vaike, just grab the metal dish your frog was in and we can cut the frog together, all right?" Lissa and Vaike looked ashamed at fighting over a frog, but agreed to my terms. Vaike got the metal pan and strapped his frog to it and we got started. When we made the first incision, though, Vaike seemed to forget life because he murdered the frog with the scalpel and all its guts spilled out of the frog, either slashed to bits or cut into pieces.

"Uh… hey, teach? I think I killed my frog a second time." Vaike spoke up innocently. Lissa and I sighed, but we continued with our own frog while Ms. Pheros chewed Vaike out for ruining the dissection and that the frogs were expensive.

Soon, biology was over and Lissa and I made our way to our next class – which happened to be on the _opposite _side of the school. It's always the same thing for us: We'd begin walking to the class, stop for a minute to rest, and then kept going. I swear, it was like a half a trip around the world in order to get from Ms. Pheros' class to Mr. Excellus' class. Luckily for us, though, Mr. Excellus' class was closer to the cafeteria – but for some reason, it was always packed even if we get there early. Anyway, we sat down in our class and I noticed Lissa scoping out the guys of the class – which there were a lot of. Lissa always liked talking about the cute boys in the school and I couldn't help but dive into the conversation.

"Did you see Gaius' outfit today?" Lissa said to me, "It looked nice on him and it made him look really dreamy…," I giggled and was about to reply to Lissa when I was suddenly cut off by her brother.

"And you're sort of dreaming!" Chrom shouted from way the heck on the other side of the classroom. I didn't know how he heard her, but the teacher quickly got on his case. Our teacher was Excellus and he was putrid. He always wore these goofy robes and he had his hair dyed purple which was cut in a gross, slightly feminine way. He thought he was a glamorous chick, but he was actually a moron. The only one in the school who liked him was Cervantes but he was just the janitor.

"Guess who gets more homework tonight?" Excellus screeched as he slammed a stack of paper on Chrom's desk. Chrom huffed at the amount of work but began working on it anyway. Lissa and I giggled at Chrom's misery.

He looked over at us while we were still giggling, "Hey! My marks come from diligence, you know!"

Lissa rolled her eyes, "And for the amount of extra work you get stuck with." Chrom cried, but Lissa and I knew it was crocodile tears and we laughed at him some more.

"Lissa! Teresa! Do _you _want more homework?" Excellus asked us and we quickly went back to our work again before he slammed down the same amount of work he gave to Chrom. Sumia, Chrom's girlfriend, placed a comforting hand on his shoulder as he cried through the amount of work. Though she must have misjudged the distance between them because she fell. Cordelia snorted a laugh like a pig at her but quickly covered her mouth. Virion laughed at her.

"OK Guys! Cut the poop! Let's get to work!" Excellus screeched like a banshee. Soon class was over and everyone trampled over Excellus to get the heck out of there. While we were all in a rush to get out, we accidentally ran into the Principal, Walhart. He glared at all of us with those sleepy eyes of his.

"Class isn't over yet, you maggots!" He yelled at all of us, "There's still one minute left!"

"What could we possibly learn in that one minute?" A person in our class, Frederick, wondered. Frederick was that unusual hard-working student that would tutor the rest of us if we asked. Though, no one liked to ask ever since he tutored this one student and he didn't come back to school for a week and when he did return, he would always look withdrawn and pale with his eyes wide like saucers. Frederick claimed that he just did one work sheet he designed himself and that was what happened to him. We were terrified ever since of the large brown haired man with the stern eyes.

"Lots! All right, since you kids had the gall to leave class early, you have to stay after school and learn from ME!" Principal Walhart growled. We all protested or groaned in disbelief. This wasn't fair at all – a minute wasn't going to end life or anything!

"B-but my Mom promised me burritos tonight when I got home! I was dreaming about them all day! I don't want to be stuck here when all my brothers get to eat those delicious burritos!" Stahl complained, stomach growling. He was looking a lot better than he was in biology class, which was good to see.

"SILENCE! I will hear no more!" Walhart hollered as his pants fell down. He looked down when all of us began giggling and turned a beet red, just like the suit he had on. He was wearing the cutest pair of My Little Pony boxers! It was full of Rainbow Dashes and Twilight Sparkle! He quickly retrieved his briefs as we all ran passed him. He lifted his finger in the air as he bounced down the hallway after us with his pants halfway up his knees, "I mean it you kids! The class is in session after schoo – WHOA!" He then fell to the recently waxed floor Cervantes just did. Cervantes apologized, but didn't help him up because he was too distracted by Walhart's underpants. Thanks to that, we were able to get away from Principal Walhart's after school class, but it didn't stop us from meeting the upcoming challenges that we would meet that we were soon to encounter…


	2. Chapter 2

We all turned around the corner after we had escaped from Principal Walhart and caught our breaths, "Whew… that was a close one! I wonder how his pants fell down anyways." I wondered. Donnel and Stahl turned to each other and smirked knowingly and we all just gave them confused looks but passed it off as nothing.

"Since we're all together anyway, let's all catch lunch together." Chrom suggested. A girl named Nowi jumped up and down excitedly upon hearing that. Nowi was shorter than the rest of us, but she never seemed bothered by it. She had long yellow-greenish hair that was strung into a ponytail that reached her lower back. She always wore these cutesy girly clothes like today she was wearing a cute two-tiered baby blue skirt with an emerald green puffed sleeved shirt with an open square neck. Nowi also wore lots of jewelry on her wrists and even had one around her forehead.

"Sure! I wanted to get the special today – 'A Meal Fit for Dragons'!" Nowi exclaimed. A man (I think) named Libra from our class made a disgusted face at the mere mention of the cafeteria food. We sometimes affectionately call Libra 'Padre' because of his devotion to the Church of Naga. Libra had long blonde hair and green eyes which were prettier than most girls'. In fact, everyone who met him for the first time, teacher included, accidentally mistook him for a girl. Virion was one of those people because he had the gall to flirt with Libra unknowing that he was actually a man. But, out of all of us, Libra was the most level-headed and withdrawn, I would say.

"That's nasty!" Libra complained, "Do you even know what they put in that?"

"Teach saw them put in protein juice! I need somma that stuff!" The Vaike said flexing his bicep.

"You must be delusional, Vaike. I know for a fact that they put in Validar's Secret Sauce!" Frederick told him. When we heard footsteps approaching, Chrom decided to cut the chatter because it might have been Walhart who would try to drag us down to the after school class. We needed to get going and quick! So we all made our way over to the cafeteria where it was packed as a can of sardines! The line to get lunch was longer than life so we decided to sit and wait until it died down a bit to get our lunch. We sat down at a table where the soccer team was to the right of us and the football team was to the left. Vaike eyed the both of them, I noticed.

"Hey, guys, what club were you thinking of joinin'?" Vaike wondered.

"I want to join the Home Economics club!" Cherche said happily. Not surprising, since she was an excellent cook and sewer. Basically, a house wife. Cherche had long light pink hair (obviously dyed) with a kind and polite demeanor. She usually stuck to wearing fancy, but dark clothing but today she was wearing casual clothing: A long sleeved shirt with a picture of a dinosaur on it and navy blue skinny jeans with black knee-high high-heeled boots. She always had something on her head – be it a bonnet for her more fancy clothing to a cap. Today, though, she had a headband that looked like it had bat wings on either side of her head. She was also the kind of person who could say something terrifying with a pleasant smile on her face and things didn't seem to bother her much.

"Ah, please!" Vaike waved his hand at her, scoffing, "Ol' Teach ain't goin' t' take that club. That's for girls like Libra! I'm more into the masculine kind of activities, if you know what I mean!"

"Ewww!" Sumia screamed. She punched Vaike in the face, which made all of us laugh our keisters off. Frederick was laughing the hardest. He was tearing up, seriously. Sumia was a girl who liked to count herself down – which was why I believed Chrom was a good match for her. He seemed to give her the confidence she clearly lacked. She had very light brown hair, almost so much so that it looked grey. She always had a wing pin in her hair which she often left down in loose curls. She always wore a skirt (in fact, I have never seen her with pants on) and she seemed to only have bright colored clothes. Today, she was wearing a light green-blueish t-shirt with a light red cardigan over that. She wore a pink skirt that reached her knees and brown flat-heeled boots that met with the end of her skirt.

"I was thinking of joining Farmers Helpin' Farmers, yeah!" Donnel said with a grin. Donnel was a little on the thin side, but that was probably due to the fact he helped his parents on the farm they have. He was always going on about his farm, what kind of crops they grew and how _great _his Ma was. It's true that she sounded like a tough ol' cow, but honestly, it would get boring from time to time. The most interesting thing about Donnel that you'd notice right away was his scar. He didn't like to mention it and to be polite, I didn't press, but I still wanted to know where he got it.

"Well, I haven't really gave it much thought…," Cordelia answered thoughtfully, "I could join the music club, the art club, the home economics club, the soccer team, the football team, the cheerleading squad, the – ,"

"OK, we all know how _perfect _you are." Sully huffed. Sully was a tough girl who believed she could become a better athlete than any man in the world. She had short tossed red hair and fierce, determined eyes. To match her hair, I supposed, she wore a lot of red. Today, she wore a red tank that was tucked into her baggy jeans which were forced into her big combat boots. Sully didn't wear any make-up like the rest of the girls, but I didn't think she needed to anyway – she looked perfectly fine despite all the training she does to become 'the perfect athlete'.

"I am not perfect! I am actually quite bad at everything… and I also have – err… never mind." Cordelia replied, blushing. We all knew that one… Cordelia had long layered red hair and friendly eyes. She was confidently poised and was, as Sully said, perfect at everything. She could draw, sing, write, play multiple different instruments, act, do crafts, play sports, you name it. She was the favorite of a lot of the boys in the school, because of her great beauty and talents that she didn't seem to realize she had. Though, when it was just us girls, she would always compare her chest size with all of us. She always says that my chest size is perfect – probably because mine were the only ones where hers were bigger.

"Anyway, I'm join' the soccer club that's for da** sure! I gotta train the ol' legs!" Sully explained. Virion leered at her.

"My, my how those shapely legs will kick!" He chimed in with a greasy grin.

"Shut up." Cherche looked right. At. Him. Virion got scared of her, quickly saying he had to go and ran straight to the washroom. No one in particular missed him.

"What are you thinking of joining, Chrom?" Sumia wondered turning our attention to the blue haired hottie of our group.

"I don't know… I was thinking about running for the Student Council to become President, but I'm no good at making speeches." Chrom admitted. We all scoffed at him.

"If anyone could run for Student Council President and be elected it's you, Chrom!" Lissa told him cheerfully. Chrom smiled at his sister's confidence.

"Thank you. Well, if I do decide, I trust I will have all of your support, guys." Chrom said. Everyone present either gave Chrom a confident smile or an amiable thumbs up. I looked at Chrom for a while and then a fiery resolve overcame me. I didn't know where it came from, but I was suddenly so confident that I gathered everyone's attention to share it by slamming the table with my fist. Everyone stared at me, but I just looked at Chrom, pointing right at him.

"Never mind deciding – you really should go through with it!" I told him, "I think you're a natural-born leader, Chrom and I'm not just saying that to be friendly. I'm sure everyone agrees here, right?" I looked around at everyone who quickly nodded their heads.

"Yeah, I agree with 'er, Chrom! If The Vaike believes in anyone and trusts anyone to be the Student Council President, it's you!" Vaike said, giving Chrom a noogie.

"Cut it out, Vaike!" Chrom complained and the big man quickly released Chrom. After Vaike's assault, Chrom abashedly scratched the back of his head, "That's… a lot of confidence you have in me, Teresa. Are you sure I can do it?"

"Have more confidence in yourself, Chrom!" Sumia encouraged, "I also saw that leader inside of you since before we started going out – and I know for a fact Cordelia does too!" At the sudden attention, the red head turned a bright pink in the cheeks.

"Wha – I mean, of course I saw it. Who could miss it?" Cordelia agreed with a jagged smile.

"I think Teresa's right, Chrom!" Sully slapped Chrom harshly on the back with a grin, "You should run for Student Council President – it'd suit you. Plus maybe you could get Excellus fired, har!" Chrom smiled and a certain conviction overtook him as he stood up.

"All right! If everyone thinks I can do it, I will! Let's go to the office and sign up!" Chrom decided firmly. The group cheered loudly, drawing attention to everyone around us, especially a certain group a few seats behind us who were dressed in really dark clothing. One of them had red hair and sharp green eyes and was dressed fashionably. He was the only one who was glaring at Chrom instead of looking on with curiosity. We didn't pay much attention though as we were all excited for Chrom's Presidential Campaign.

Immediately, a handful of us which included Sumia, myself, Lissa, Vaike, and Sully came along with Chrom to watch him sign up. The others stayed behind to save our seats since they were the ones who had to buy their lunches. Anyway, the rest of us left the cafeteria but I noticed that the group with the red-head who glared at Chrom earlier also got up before we completely left. I hoped they weren't going to start anything because that red-headed guy certainly seemed to have it out for Chrom judging from the way he was staring at Chrom so menacingly.

Still, we made our way to the office where the sign-up sheet was still accepting people to run for President. Before writing down his own name, Chrom looked up at the names already written down. He frowned at the sight of it, "What is it, Chrom?" Lissa wondered.

"Nothing… well, something. Look at the other people who signed up to be Student Council President." Chrom pointed out. We all took this moment to look at the list of names that were written down. I recognized them all: Basilio, Flavia, and the most prominent one, _Gangrel_. I put two and two together and affirmed in my head that the red head who was glaring at Chrom in the cafeteria was Gangrel. He was pretty popular with a group of students who liked to call themselves 'the Plegians'. He was sort of notorious for treating the other students harshly, but I supposed that appealed to the self-styled 'Plegians'. The Plegians were a group or dark-looking people who were either into strange religions or were into the so-called 'dark arts'. They were truly a bunch of weirdoes. Basilio and Flavia, on the other hand, were more popular with the athletes which was about half of the male-student body. They seemed to hate one another so of course when one signed up for Student Council President, the other must have done the same to challenge the other.

"Gee, they all seem like a tough crowd to beat…," Sumia muttered.

"It doesn't matter, Chrom will rise through I can just feel it." I told them cheerfully. Chrom seemed a little hesitant, but he scratched his name down anyway. It was possible to physically feel the pressure coming off of him, no doubt knowing how hard it would be to campaign against such influential figures as well as balance school work. Though, Chrom _did _say his marks came from diligence, so if he kept that up along with trying to become Student Council President, he would do just fine.

It was then that someone else came into the office. When we turned around to see who it was, it was Gangrel. There was also a big-chested woman with only a little bit of clothing covering her behind him. I knew her to be Aversa, who was basically Gangrel's lackey. He frowned obviously at Chrom, "I thought I heard correctly. So, you're also running to become Student Council President, eh?"

Chrom glared back at Gangrel defiantly, "Yes, and I'm not going to lose – especially not to you!" Gangrel let out a big laugh.

"Oh I'm not so certain about that. I've already… _secured_ a lot of votes from my glorious peers. I guess that's just what happens when you're as charismatic as I am." Gangrel grinned. No one around me believed that he got those votes in a fair, kind way – that much was obvious, judging from their glares they gave Gangrel.

"I bet you threatened them into voting for you!" Lissa accused with a scowl on her face.

"Now, now, sweetheart. That frown will ruin your pretty little face." Gangrel teased, which enraged Lissa further. Out of all the people in the school, Gangrel was the one person who really intimidated me. The other Plegians weren't a big deal, but Gangrel was the one to worry about – as there was a rumor floating around that he suddenly got rich overnight because his parents illegally smuggled some stolen expensive artifacts from a prestigious museum and sold them under the table. People didn't want to associate with him because he might have learned from his parents, which I was beginning to learn might be true – as even his presence made my heart race.

"You'd better be running for role as President fairly, Gangrel. I might just have to report you to Principal Walhart if I catch you cheating!" Chrom threatened.

"Calm yourself, you lickspittle, I wouldn't _dream_ of cheating. I obtain their votes very fairly, I assure you." Gangrel shrugged. Then seemingly disinterested, Gangrel continued, "Well, now that I've identified the competition, I'll leave you to try and take the President's spot from me – that is, if you can." With a final laugh, Gangrel and Aversa left the office without another word.

Chrom clenched his fist with his eyes glued on Gangrel's back, "Gangrel…!"

"I just know he's going to do something underhanded!" Lissa huffed.

"Yeah, but to our delight, he's probably going to do it sooner rather than later." Sully added with a frown. I couldn't help but agree with them. If Gangrel wanted to prove those terrible rumors about him untrue he probably would have done so by now – yet, he hadn't. Perhaps he didn't care if they spread or perhaps he encouraged them. I looked at Chrom – who would this Presidential run favor? Chrom? Or Gangrel?


	3. Chapter 3

"Chrom, quit being so anxious! The campaigning doesn't start until next week – Gangrel won't try anything right now, so you can rest easy!" Lissa tried to calm Chrom down, but it was futile. The high-strung blue haired man was far too worried about Gangrel's threat to consider Lissa's words. He was biting on his thumbnail, not even paying an ounce of attention to Lissa – to which I felt extremely bad. I mean, I was the one who suggested he run for Student Council President and yet the only thing it did was make him this agitated. If I had but known, I probably wouldn't have spoken up to spare him from this.

So I tried to change the subject to get his mind off of it, "Hey, did you do Mr. Farber's homework that he assigned last night?" The girls Sumia, Lissa and Sully all gave me a 'where the heck did that come from?' look, but then recognition soon shone in their eyes.

"Aw, cr**! I forgot to do it!" Sully lamented, sweat falling from her brow, "His class is next class ain't it? I gotta run and quickly do that! See ya around!" With that, Sully bolted from the office in an awful hurry. Lissa watched her go but just sighed a breath of relief.

"Luckily for me, I'm not in his class." Then Lissa huffed at me, "Geez, Teresa! You nearly gave me a heart attack! I almost thought I didn't do it for a moment – if I didn't remember for five more seconds I would have shot out the door just like Sully!"

I giggled, "Well, it's a good thing I reminded Sully, though. You recall Mr. Farber's punishment for not completing homework for his class, don't you Chrom?" It would seem I dragged Chrom from his thoughts – finally. He was beginning to worry all of us with that pale disposition, especially Sumia.

"Yes – it was awful; he stalked my house after giving me a pile of homework to make sure I did it. I don't think I slept at all…," Chrom recalled sheepishly. Lissa groaned.

"I remember that. Ugh, he wasn't even stalking me, but it was unnerving." Lissa shook her head, "Anyway, now that Chrom's back on Earth with us, let's go eat something before lunch is over." Chrom blinked at his sister, not knowing what she meant probably by him 'being back on Earth' but just quietly came with us back to the cafeteria. Everyone didn't seem to wonder why we took so long, but we were glad that we wouldn't have to bring Gangrel up in fear Chrom would get anxious again. Our friends just welcomed us back as we ate our food and chatted some more about miscellaneous things.

Finally, lunch was over but sadly Lissa wasn't in next my class with Mr. Farber; though Sully was. Not to mention a significant other… I mean, another person of whom I was acquainted with when (surprisingly) I became friends with Lissa. She knew nearly everyone in the school, I swear. Anyway, the person who I'm talking about in this class's name was Lon'qu. He had dark, tossed spiky hair and sharp eyes. He rarely talked in class, heck, he hardly _talked_. I was content with him being that way, even though when there was the odd occasion that he _would _talk, he had the deepest, most ovary-tingling voice I had ever heard. The only probably was, despite my many attempts to try and get close to him, he had a crippling fear of women. The reason was unknown, but I wasn't about to pry the answer from him – considering the fact I was a woman (albeit, the most unwomanly woman ever). He didn't wear the most fashionable clothes, it was almost as if he could care less about his attire, as long as it was modest and affordable.

Taking my seat that I knew was right next to Lon'qu's, I noticed that I was a little early. The teacher wasn't there, but there were only a handful of people of whom I could identify: Maribelle, Virion (who finally seemed man enough to leave the washrooms after Cherche told him to shut up), Libra and Gaius. They didn't seem to notice me step in until I sat down; and they quickly steered over to where I was.

"Hey there, Poomer." Gaius greeted. Gaius was a pretty casual guy with an easy-going temperament. Like Lissa, he knew a lot of people, but perhaps people of the wrong crowd. Though, the way he became a part of our usual crowd was so he could occasionally get candies from Lissa. Gaius was an inexorable sweet tooth – he loved sweets probably more than he loved his own life. He always had a stash of them wherever he went. I was kind of confused as to how he was able to carry that and his books to classes, but if he was capable of doing it, I wasn't going to interfere. Gaius was a ginger who liked to wear dark clothing a lot, though I found it went well with his hair. Like Lissa had told me this morning, he did have a nice outfit on: A dark v-neck t-shirt tucked into his baggy navy blue jeans with casual black sneakers.

I was confused, "'Poomer'? Is that my nickname now?"

"Yeah, for some reason it popped into my head just now and I thought it'd suit you." Gaius explained, "Anyway, since we're a little early, how's about you sneak me the answers to those questions on the homework Mr. Farber assigned us last night, eh? I was struggling on the last one, but Virion was stuck on four, five and six. We agreed that your answers would be correct so we decided to ask you about them."

"And they assumed _my _answers were incorrect, the curs." Maribelle spat, flipping her hair over her shoulder. Maribelle had wealthy parents, so it was to be expected that she was also sophisticated as well. She had tight light blonde ringlets which were held up by cute white bows. Her eyes were soft, but with a hint of strictness to her. She was always poised perfectly, even in those high-heels she wore every day. She would always wear a dress – she probably had a whole closet dedicated to dresses. Today, it was a pink dress with a frills on the inside of the skirt and puffed sleeves.

I was surprised and sort of flattered that they'd ask for my answers instead of just taking Maribelle's (which were more than likely correct). Still, I pulled out my sheet and passed it over to them where they ripped it from my hands and scanned it. After that, they furiously wrote down the answers nodding as they went. When they were finished, they handed me back my sheet.

"Just as I thought – you're one smart cookie, Poomer." Gaius acknowledged.

I just shook his compliment off; I was never one for taking untrue praise – even if they thought it to be true, "So why'd you wait for my answers? Maribelle's answers would have been good enough."

"Maribelle's answers were certainly above par, yet… when we saw her writing, we did not know what she was talking about." Virion admitted, but gracefully, as I would have expected from him, "She uses such… colorfully poetic language that it is almost… indecipherable."

Maribelle quickly got red in the face about that, "You blokes told me that you thought my answers were improper – yet, you insist that it is impossible to read?! How rude!" Gaius and Virion exchanged looks which piqued my interest. I asked Maribelle to see her answers and she did so but not without giving Gaius and Virion both a terrifying glare.

I looked down at Maribelle's answers and found myself stupefied. I knew she talked regally enough out loud, but on paper she was even worse. What the heck did 'cogitation', 'agog' and 'austere' mean? You'd basically needed a thesaurus just to translate what she was trying to say – it was no wonder Virion and Gaius wanted answers that were a little simpler to understand so they knew what they were writing (and so if they copied word-for-word it would be a little less obvious that they were cheating).

I handed it back to her, "Well, that there is solid proof that you're the head of the poetry club, Maribelle. That's very… eloquently done." Maribelle took the paper back from me with a 'hmph!' and just walked over to her desk.

"Um… anyway…," Gaius spoke up, looking at Maribelle's angry form before turning back to me, "Speaking of clubs, do you have a club that you're thinking of joining, Poomer?"

"Bored and making idle conversation now, are we?" I smirked.

"Hey, I've got the answers I wanted and there's still ten minutes left for class, so of course." Gaius grinned back, "Indulge me for a while, will ya?"

"All right, all right." I conceded. I gave his question some thought before answering him. There was one of the sports teams that I could join: The soccer team, the football team, the boxing team, the swimming team and the kendo team. Then again, I wasn't physically active, so it probably wouldn't be a good idea to join those (even if Lon'qu was in the kendo team). Then there was the art clubs: The poetry, the drama club, the band club, the _just _art club, the home economics club and the photography club. I had to admit that the drama club seemed interesting and perhaps the photography club, but I couldn't see myself totally immersed in it. I would have to say art was my best bet, but I was worried I wouldn't know anyone in the club.

"Hmm… I don't know – I'm not an active person and some of the art clubs sound interesting to me, but I'm not entirely sure which one to join." I answered thoughtfully.

"Might I make a suggestion?" Libra spoke up for the first time since he came over to my desk, "I'm a member of the art club and we're currently lacking members. Perhaps you'd be interesting in joining?" I gave his recommendation a moment's pause on reflection. I _was _considering that club out of all of them and, not to brag or nothing, but I was pretty swell at drawing and painting and whatnot. And since I knew Libra to be in that club, perhaps I should.

"Yeah, maybe I will join the art club." I said, more decidedly as I finished the sentence, "Thanks Libra. I was thinking of joining a club ever since Vaike mentioned it in the cafeteria today – but now I'm certain the art club is the one I wish to join." Libra smiled gently at me.

"That's wonderful, Teresa. I know we're all going to be glad to have you." Libra responded softly, as always. I just smiled back up at Libra – he truly was much too gentle for his own good, but that in itself wasn't a bad thing. It suited him that was for sure.

It was then that Mr. Farber came into the class so Virion, Gaius and Libra all returned to their seats. I was that kind of person who didn't notice the things around me if I was speaking to someone because I hardly saw all my peers trickle into the room during that whole episode. That made me curiously look to my left to where I knew Lon'qu's seat out to be and – indeed – saw him sitting there as quiet as usual. I tried to pretend I wasn't looking at him, just kind of at the corner of my eye sort of thing, but he seemed to notice me anyway and turned my way. I tried to make it out to seem as though I wasn't even slightly tilting my head toward him, but my red face made it completely obvious – or, at least, I thought it was conspicuous. He didn't say anything to me; not even an annoyed sigh.

Anyway, Mr. Farber began the class by examining to see if we had all done our homework. Seriously, he was such a stiff-butt about that; we were in flipping high school – we didn't need our homework checked every time he assigned it. Though, he just gave a brief scan of everyone's this time instead of reading all the answers then and there, to which none of us complained. Once he had reached the end of his list (those not completing the homework were on his 'stalking list'), he began the lesson. Although I enjoyed my share of history as much as the next person, I found myself bored out of my skull. It wasn't the same without Lissa complaining about something or Vaike having to prove something to someone. It didn't help that Mr. Farber was on a really boring topic about the importance of learning historical events so as to not make the same mistake twice, blah, blah, blah.

Though he suddenly shocked me when he said, "All right, we're going to get into pairs – _assigned _pairs, because I don't trust any of you simpletons to choose your own – and with your partner, you're going to discuss the significance of life while we were still naked barbarians living in caves."

Immediately, a girl in my class shot up her hand. Her name was Miriel and she was the biggest brain in the class, no, the entire _school_. She had straight red hair and sharp eyes hidden behind glasses. She always wore modest clothing, like she couldn't care less about her attire, much like Lon'qu, but probably for different reasons. Today she was wearing a knitted olive green old lady sweater with an emerald green collar. She wore plain blue skinny jeans with black boots that went midway up her shins.

"Miriel, I tire of your bothersome questions." Mr. Farber sighed. From that, it was easy to gather how much questions she asked in a day. I wondered where she got all the questions from when none of us even thought of half of the ones she asked, but I probably would be better off not knowing.

She went ahead with her question anyway, "Sir, where is the connection from your lesson to this assignment that you are giving out to us? Is this going to be on the exam? If so, shouldn't we get some more notes on the subject? I would most certainly not want to bungle and hurt my mark." Miriel wondered. Mr. Farber was just about to answer her question when another barrage of questions were hurtled his way, "Hold a moment, Mr. Farber, I'm not quite finished. How long do you believe the exam for this class is going to be, now that we're on the subject of the exam? Will you be cognisant of time and make it so that we shall be able to get out at exactly 11:00 a.m.? If so, what topics are going to be most frequent on the exam so we shall know what to study?"

Mr. Farber gave her a glare, "Exams don't begin in another three weeks, Miriel. I _don't _think I know the answers to _half _of those questions because I didn't _make _or even _think _of the exam yet." He sighed, "But the answer to your first question is to apply what I taught you just now to this assignment. And no, this part is not going to be on the exam." It was hard to tell if Miriel was satisfied with that answer because she wore the same blank but ready to absorb information expression all the time. I swear, if we went into lockdown and there was a real guy with a gun crawling around, she'd probably be the only one with a calm expression while the rest of us were weeping or were wide-eyed.

"Thank you, Sir." Miriel simply said, hand down. Mr. Farber rubbed the bridge of his nose before deciding partners. Of course he chose the people of whom weren't exactly the best of friends. He paired Miriel up with Virion. That was probably an even bigger mistake than pairing Virion up with someone he was close with because while Miriel would be trying to discuss the topic, Virion would veer it over and turn it into a futile flirting frenzy. I sighed, hoping that he would at least pair me up with someone who would at least stay on topic so we would get this over and done with.

Mr. Farber, of course, went through the class from the opposite end of the class from us so of course I was one of the last ones to get paired up. Though, when he said that I would be paired up with Lon'qu, I was surprised, but didn't complain. All that waiting was worth it, because we were the only ones left thanks to that.

Immediately, and probably a little too quickly, I pushed my desk over to where his was. He almost seemed repulsive of my presence, but I understood why, which was why I left a little space between our desks for him.

I was a little hesitant to begin the conversation because I was increasingly getting red in the face but I pushed through that and my stuttering, "U-um… well, we should probably get to discussing, shouldn't we?" I waited for him to reply, but answer there came not. As nervous as I was I obviously kept talking, like I always did when I was riled up, "OK! Um! Caves! People! Naked! Significance! I think that without that period, we wouldn't know how to properly adapt to our environment. I mean, in order to reap gains from the Earth, we sort of had to be active with our environment, you know? Like we had to know what to do when it turned winter, how to make fire, how to make clothes for warmth… am I making any sense? I don't know if that makes sense." I laughed timidly.

"I think it makes sense." Lon'qu replied.

"Good! Sometimes I just rambled on about nothing and only at the last minute people tell me it doesn't make sense." I explained, but then felt the need to add, "If I go on and on about nothing, please tell me rather than let me continue on. It's kind of embarrassing, really; and no one probably cares to hear me talk about nonsense."

"That isn't necessarily true." Lon'qu told me, which instantly made me intrigued. We were carrying a conversation! It was a miracle! An ovary-tingling miracle! "I won't deny that you do sometimes talk about… odd things, you do have knowledge worth imparting." I knew that when he mentioned the 'odd' things, he was referring to that time when I accidentally ran into him one time in the hallways because Lissa had found out I liked him due to a slip of paper I used as a bookmark read his name on it. She took it from my locker and ran off with it to tease me. I, obviously, ran after her but when I turned around the corner, I bumped into him and he flinched back harshly. During that time, I was full of worry that Lissa would show that slip of paper to the wrong person, hurt from him seeming to hate my presence and excitement that I took a whiff of him manly smell that I said something I regretted. I had spouted out nonsense that I _think _went: "P-paper! Paper, need! Back! Now!" And ran off. That was only one incident.

It took me a while to realize that he was probably also referring to my encounter with Gaius and Virion when they took the answers from my sheet. As soon as I grasped that, my face turned a bright red. He was calling me smart! OK, OK, calm down Teresa – he probably meant nothing more than what he said. Of course there weren't any underlying messages – of course not! At least, that's how I tried to convince myself. Knowing myself as well as I did, I knew it was going to get into my head, "Th-thanks…,"

"Anyway, let's just get this over with." He suddenly said.

"Right!" I replied cheerfully. With that, we continued our discussion until Mr. Farber decided it was time to get out of our partners and go back to the lesson. I was a little bit disappointed to put our seats back, but I was left with that little side conversation we had – and I kept it with me for the rest of the day. I swear, if I didn't remember I was in public, I would have been grinning ear to ear through the hallways. Even though I told myself that Lon'qu probably didn't mean anything by what he said, I still felt my heart soar the more I ran those words through my head. Ah… I loved being enrolled at Ylisse High.


	4. Chapter 4

The next day came all too quickly, but it started out differently than it usually panned out. Usually, I would meet with Lissa in the morning, in the same spot as always. Yet, today I noticed that Chrom was there with Frederick instead of his sister. I rose an eyebrow of interest, but I didn't say anything about it as I approached them. In fact, before they saw me, I picked up on the fact that Chrom seemed different than he normally did: His complexion was a tad bit paler and even from a distance I could feel lethargy coming off of him. He was probably still worried about Gangrel no doubt.

"Hey Chrom. Hey Frederick." I greeted, calling their attention. They turned to me and Chrom gave me an overwrought smile in response while Frederick just stared back at me with a slight nod. Chrom hurriedly met with me halfway which made Frederick rush to catch up; it seemed like he had something on his mind that needed to be shared with someone.

"Will you come with me to the cafeteria for a moment before classes? I want to talk about my campaign." Chrom immediately told me. I gave him a look, but then nodded quietly. Even though I was confused as to why he wanted to talk to me about it when Frederick was with him, I didn't bring it up. Who was I to argue with him when he was in this state? Anyway, the three of us made our way over to the cafeteria and sat down at an empty space where there weren't a lot of people around. I tried to also choose the farthest seat away from where Gangrel and the Plegians were, but they were still within peripheral vision. I tried not to focus on them.

"So what is it you wanted to talk about Chrom?" I wondered.

"Well, I was thinking last night… I needed someone I could trust to help me succeed in my Presidential Campaign. I needed someone to be my Presidential Advisor." He laughed almost in self-mockery, "Believe me, I went down a list of people who I knew again and again – I couldn't find one person who could do the job. That is, until I came to your name, Teresa." He paused a moment, looking right at me, waiting for me to take the hint without telling me. It hit me like a ton of bricks – Chrom was choosing _me _of all people to help him in his run for Student Council President? I was completely flattered; but mostly I felt the supreme trust Chrom seemed to possess in me. It was a lot to ask someone to share the burden of campaigning and even more so to swallow your pride and ask to begin with. Though, for a man like Chrom it was probably as easy as breathing… I mean, he was a really trusting man. Especially since he trusted _me _of all people to be his Presidential Advisor!

"What? W-why me?" I asked, aghast.

"I asked the same thing." Frederick sighed, eyes closed in utter disappointment, "I've known Chrom forever and I believed him to trust me with things like that… but then he just decides to make _you _his Presidential Advisor."

"It's not just trust, Frederick." Chrom assured, "It's also about certain qualities. And that's not to say you lack it per se, it's just… I wanted…," Chrom looked at me with those blue eyes of his and suddenly they lost their dark rings. It seemed he was searching something from me to try and find the right words to explain to Frederick as to why he chose me. My heart rate began to quicken; his gaze was beginning to unnerve me – what was that one different quality I had or didn't have that made me the right person for the job? What was it Chrom saw in me to trust me to this high degree? "…simplicity."

I stared at him, "…what?"

Frederick was also astonished, "What?"

"Look, I know that sounds strange, but when you think about it, it makes sense. I don't want any grandiloquent campaigning that you might do, Frederick. And I don't want these meticulous ideas that Miriel might hatch and I definitely don't want Vaike to do it. When I really got down to the bottom of everything, I found you were the perfect choice, Teresa." Chrom told me in a really genuine way that I bet would make anybody flush with embarrassment.

"Do you really think I can handle it, though? It's a lot of work, coming up with ideas to try and vie everyone's vote." I pointed out.

"You're not alone; if you ever need help, you've got me to run it by and you've also got the rest of us. But I know in the end you'll make the correct choices." Chrom told me. Before I could reply, Chrom snuck a glance at the clock and noticed it was almost time for classes to begin. He and Frederick parted ways, but I still had unfinished business with Chrom so I came with him to his locker which was, luckily, close by to mine so I wouldn't be too late for class.

"Chrom, I've never done anything like this before. I'm not sure I'm confident enough to be your Presidential Advisor." I admitted, but Chrom just gave me an unbelieving look as we proceeded to his locker. I continued, "I'm serious! My ideas are usually no good – you'd be better off asking Vaike!"

"Somehow I doubt that, Teresa. You're intelligent, but not at Miriel's level, which is why you're perfect for this situation." Chrom stopped at his locker as he said this and put in his combination. I huffed at him.

"And just what is _that _supposed to mean?" I demanded. Chrom opened his locker and out came fluttering a little piece of paper. Chrom just swiftly picked it up and looked down at it. That really sparked a memory into my head, "Ugh, I hate it when that happens; you toss a sheet in your locker and after a while it rips and comes dancing down upon you like it wants it's revenge or something for being stuck in your locker for so long." When I finished my dumb story, I noticed that Chrom was looking much paler than he did earlier this morning as he continued to stare down at the piece of paper, "Is something the matter, Chrom?"

He seemed to snap out of a trance, "N-no… nothing. It was just a note from Lissa. Looks like I forgot to buy her a new phone case to replace the one she lost." Chrom sheepishly laughed it off as he grabbed his books and slammed his locker shut again, "Anyway, thanks for becoming my Presidential Advisor, Teresa! See you later!" With that, the blue haired man rushed off down the hallway before I could say anything.

"Hey! You can't just decide I'm your Presidential Advisor!" I yelled back at him, but he was already too far away to hear me. I sighed as I shook my head and began to go to my own locker. Why was I so focused on trying not to become Chrom's Presidential Advisor? Was I just not good at accepting responsibility? Or was it just that I was still bashful that he chose _me _out of everyone else to be his Presidential Advisor? Thinking about it now that my head was a little less full of 'whats', it wasn't such a bad thing – I would be able to prove my mettle to the rest of my group of friends and I might even catch Lon'qu's attention. I blushed, thinking back to yesterday with Lon'qu and thinking of that turning to him fully having his attention on me because he noticed my vast intellect and my cunning and my beauty (which ultimately didn't exist) which helped Chrom win the seat as Student Council President and he would eventually become mine! Yes! It was so simple! Thank you, Chrom!

With those thoughts in my head I went through Ms. Pheros' class and Mr. Excellus' class like a dream. All I could think about was Lon'qu and him noticing me – to which Lissa clearly picked up on. She teased me for daydreaming in class but when she did I just pointed to a picture of a heart in Ms. Pheros' class and she'd get grossed out and quiet down for a while. After being figured out so easily, I went back to work; though I did take the time when we were doing individual work to tell Lissa about Chrom's proposal this morning (not the romantic sort of proposal – he's reserved for Sumia!). Lissa just smiled, but didn't seem surprised which made sense. They were brother and sister so of course he must have told her about his decision to make me his Presidential Advisor. She told me he made the right choice – which made me flush from embarrassment; were they trying to give me a stuffed shirt or what?!

As for Mr. Excellus' class, I stepped up my game since Chrom was also in that class and began writing some ideas to get Chrom's name out there and what ways would be most effective in doing just that. I wrote down some silly things at first because I really couldn't think of anything at all like having Cherche sew on 'Chrom for President' on a couple of fruit of the looms. OK, that was just dumb, which they all began as. Then toward the end of the class, I came up with practical ideas like having a skilled drawer like Libra draw a heroic-looking Chrom on a poster board along with a line that went something like 'A natural-born leader… it's only natural you'd want him to be your President!' Of course, I'd have to come up with a better, catchier line than that, but I continued on from there.

When lunch came around I wanted to approach Chrom with these ideas, but he had already left Mr. Excellus' class before I could ask him. Before I could go and search for him, Lissa came up to me, "Hey, Teresa, do you want to come and hang out with the girls today at lunch? The boys already decided it to be 'Boy's Day' already and don't want to hang out with any of us. I bet it was just some malarkey Vaike made up to talk about muscles and manhood's."

I laughed, "I would love to, Lissa. But, I wanted to talk to Chrom about this whole 'being his Presidential Advisor' thing. Do you happen to know where he went by any chance?"

"Hmm… no. Usually he hangs around a bit before lunch, but he's been acting weird ever since he and Gangrel had that encounter yesterday. I think Gangrel really got to him; he's a wreck – even though it's just some silly Student Council thing." Lissa shrugged. That got me worried; seriously, Chrom shouldn't have been nearly as distressed as he was – Gangrel just challenged him for President's spot, nothing more. I knew they had some sort of bad history, but whatever it was it probably shouldn't have been enough to put Chrom out like this.

"Well, I'm just going to try and find him before we hang out, if that's OK." I told her.

"Sure; I'm fine with that. We're going to be in the cafeteria – you'll see us when you get there." Lissa replied with a friendly smile as she waved in parting. I waved as well before turning in the opposite direction she was headed and began to look for Chrom. Deciding that it would be best if I checked around his locker first and foremost, I headed straight there. Even though I thought Chrom to be over exaggerating about Gangrel's threat, I couldn't help but wonder if something else happened that everyone, but Chrom, wasn't aware of. I shook the idea out of my head – becoming Student Council President couldn't be that big of a deal to inspire cheating or dirty tricks… could it?

Anyway, when I made it to Chrom's locker, I just caught him about to leave. I scooted over, grabbing his shoulder to him before he could get away. He turned to me, seemingly surprised to see me here, "Teresa? Did you need something?"

"Yeah…," I answered, trailing off as I stared at his face. I was no good at reading faces, especially when he had this curious look on his face. Darn it, I had hoped I would get an idea of what was going on, but I just made myself even more confused, "…um, right. I-I have a few ideas written down here and I just wanted to run it by you."

"That certainly was fast." Chrom smiled, taking the paper from my hands. He scanned the page really quickly before he gave my paper back to me, "Those are pretty good initial ideas – except the 'fruit of the loom' one."

"Ack! I thought I blotched that one out!" I gasped, looking down at the paper and noticing that I forgot to get rid of it. Chrom laughed at me and threw on the jacket I hadn't realized he had in his hands. I tilted my head to the side, "Going off grounds? Alone? How very unlike you."

"Lissa wanted me to pick up the phone case, so I decided to pick it up with my lunch." Chrom explained looking really eager to get going, to which I nodded my head. It was sad how they restricted lunch time to a short hour – which seems long, but sometimes it just wasn't nearly long enough, I found; especially when you needed to get something done before class.

"Bring me back something!" I laughed, "Just kidding!" With that, Chrom disappeared down the hallway and I turned around to make my way to the cafeteria while folding the paper of ideas in my hands and tucked it away into my pocket. Hopefully better ideas will come to mind so Chrom's trust in me wouldn't fail him.

When I made it to the cafeteria, it was just as Lissa said – I did see them right away: They were in the first table from the entrance. Right away, I took a spot next to Cherche and noticed that Miriel was droning on about class work and exams. Everyone, especially Sully, seemed bored out of their skull, but as soon as I came they figured it was a great time to change the subject.

"Hey! 'Bout time you came around!" Sully grinned.

"Yeah, Chrom decided this morning that I was fit to be his Presidential Advisor and I've been beside myself with worry that I wouldn't be good enough." I sighed, "I'm probably going to make him regret his choice because I always need someone's reassurance if I do something because I'm not at all confident in myself."

"I'm sure that's not the case, Teresa! I mean, Chrom puts up with me and I'm the worst when it comes to confidence!" Sumia encouraged me cheerfully. I smiled at Sumia, feeling bad that her comforting words were had a negative connotation toward her.

"She's right! Suck it up and do your best, yeah?" Sully said, "But enough of that – I've been meaning to ask about this whole 'Boy's Day' thing. What the _he**_ did those boys mean they wanted time away from us?! What makes us so different huh?! Are boobs and a vagina something to get away from now?!"

"Sully, I'd change your language and lower your tone if you're going to say embarrassing things like that aloud in public." Cherche cautioned her politely with a smile. Sully just grumbled something under her breath and crossed her arms.

"I still don't like it." Sully mumbled, "It's like they're _trying _to pi** me off."

"Speaking of boys…," Lissa spoke up with a sly smirk, "I heard a rumor floating around that there was someone crushing on you, Sully. They're probably just too afraid of you to tell you, naturally." I was surprised to see Sully get so interested in the conversation.

"Really?! Who is it?" Sully demanded.

"Not telling!" Lissa laughed.

"Come on, seriously! I'm not going to say anything – honest." Sully insisted, getting red in the face. I supposed that it was rare for Sully to hear that someone was crushing on her especially when she seemed to despise men outwardly. I would be equally curious as she was, "Is it someone from our group of friends? Someone that I know?"

"Nope, not giving you an inch, Missy." Lissa teased.

"Lissa! You tossed me a bone, I want the rest – I want the meat!"

"Oh! I heard another rumor floating around as well about you, too, Olivia!" Lissa ignored Sully and focused on the pink-haired, quiet girl of our group. Olivia hated being in the spotlight and every time she was, she would turn a bright red. Like right now, when Lissa made our group concentrate on her, she immediately flushed and refused to meet with our eyes. Though she was incredibly shy, she loved to dance – and she was _very _good at it; but she didn't like all the eyes on her while she danced. I found that truly a shame; if only she didn't let her shyness get in the way, she wouldn't have to worry about dancing in a crowd. Anyway, Olivia was a very fashionable girl as well – despite her disliking having attention on her. Today she was wearing a frilly white shirt with a belt around her waist. She wore hoops of gold around her wrists that surprisingly stay on her skinny wrists and golden hoop earrings popping out from her pink her that was strung back into a long ponytail. She wore black tights with a cute black flats with a matching black flower on the toe of them with a pink gem in the middle.

"H-huh? Is… there?" Olivia tried to sound interested but still refused to meet with our eyes. It was clear that she didn't want to discuss this about herself but was just probably content with listening in about the other girls. It was too late now, though.

"I believe I heard that one as well." Cordelia chimed in, "I think they said it was… Stahl? Donnel?" As soon as Olivia heard Donnel's name it seemed her shyness was non-existent.

"Ew! Donnel!" She shrieked.

"Hey! That's not very nice – Donnel's a good kid! Hard-working and everything." Sully said in Donnel's defence. Maribelle took this opportunity to put in her two cents because she smirked from across the table at Sully.

"Sounds like someone is in _loove_." She teased, causing Sully to turn red.

"It's not that I like 'im! I just appreciate hard work!" Sully replied defensively, "Farmers do a lot of da** work, right? They have t' plow the fields, plant the crops, make sure they grow and whatever and they harvest it and give all their hard-earned cr** to us city folk."

Olivia was still lamenting at the fact that Donnel possibly liked her, "But… he's not attractive…," We all laughed at that and our conversation continued on like that for the rest of the lunch hour. It was kind of sad to leave when we were in a heated discussion about rumors floating around about who liked who but time just had to slip away from us. We all parted ways to get to class but the conversation still hung on me. It made me wonder… was there anyone crushing on me? I tried silencing these thoughts, initially, but they kept coming back with a vengeance. Of course, I hoped that Lon'qu was – but there were other hot men out there that may not be my crush but I would be equally happy with. Though, there probably wasn't – no one would be interested in _me _out of all the prettier and more interesting girls in the group.

With that thought, I spent the class only half-listening to Mr. Farber and half trying to think up some better ideas for Chrom. Though in the state of mind I was in, I couldn't think up anything intelligent. Discouraged, I looked up at the clock and watched the minutes go by as Mr. Farber kept going on with the history lesson.

When class was over, I tried not to make my discouragement obvious as I went to my next class. Though, I was just about to turn the corner when Lissa bumped into me with saucers for eyes. I looked at her worriedly, "Lissa? What's wrong?"

She grabbed my arms, "Teresa – it's Chrom! He's been suspended!"


	5. Chapter 5

"I heard Chrom beat up a student for no reason!"

"I hope he gets kicked out of the Presidential run. We don't need a Student Council President like him."

"What a brute! I wish he was suspended much longer for what he did!"

"I hope he decides not to come back to school."

"That was just plain cruel of him!"

I tried to block out these words but it was difficult since it was on the tongue of nearly every student in the school. Lissa told me yesterday that Chrom had been suspended and rumors erupted throughout the school ever since the incident happened. Apparently, the story was that Chrom had planned to meet Gangrel behind a building where he was prepared to beat the living daylights out of him. It was said that by the time Principal Walhart arrived at the scene, Gangrel was all bloody and bruised while Chrom was completely fine. I didn't believe those words for a moment; there was no way Chrom would do something so brutal – even if it was to someone like Gangrel.

Poor Lissa, on the other hand, was beside herself with worry for Chrom. Since Chrom had been suspended for the rest of the day yesterday and today as well, everyone picked on her for what they believed Chrom to have done. Her friends and I would do everything in our power to try and deflect the bad connotation off of her, but the accusations kept flying her way. She was considered the sister of a brute and a barbarian – which was totally uncalled for; especially when it was all untrue.

In the morning of the next day after the incident, a whole group of us gathered together to get a glimpse of what was going on. We asked Lissa about Chrom, but she just shook her head, "He won't tell me anything. When I asked him what really happened, he just said he did what needed to be done."

"I've known Chrom for ages – and there has never been a time when he would even think of doing something like this." Frederick told us.

"But… Chrom's also never been this pressured. Maybe balancing school work and running for Student Council President was just getting to him and he let it out on Gangrel." Gaius shrugged.

"Yes, but he's not the type of person who attack someone like this!" Sumia protested.

"I agree with Sumia. Yet, we can't rule out the fact that he has a tendency to be a little on the rough side." Maribelle chimed in. Sumia quickly gave Maribelle a sorrowful look, which I could understand. She was trying so hard to understand Chrom's motives, being his girlfriend and everything. Yet, when he wasn't letting anyone understand what he was doing, it was a very trying and frustrating thing.

"That theory is realistic: Pressure can stimulate one into feeling the need to release their stress after excessive build up. Chrom might have chosen the wrong means of regulating homeostasis, but one can never capture what truly goes on inside the human brain." Miriel speculated.

"Miriel's right! – Er… if what I'm thinking is what she said." Vaike said, "We don't know what Chrom was thinkin' at the scene of th' crime, right? Maybe things got steamy and things just happened."

"But he should have at least known that attacking Gangrel wasn't the way – no matter how angry he might have been at Gangrel at the time." I added, "Well, we all agree on one thing: Chrom would never do something like this unless he had absolutely no other choice." Everyone in the group agreed with me, though their nods were more hesitant than they were agreeing. I had to admit, I was beginning to have my own doubts about this whole thing: I knew Chrom would never do something like this, I knew it and I felt it in my bones… but the rumors planted a seed of doubt inside of me that just grew with every sprinkle of proof against him.

"There's no way… Chrom would never…," Sumia mumbled, but you could tell she was close to tears. It must be hard on her, the poor girl. Seeing Chrom in this light must be tearing at her insides; she knew she should trust Chrom and be on his side at all times – but how could she when he wasn't denying what happened? How could she when the rumors were piling up like a landfill?

I glanced up at the clock and I stood up regretfully, "Well, it's almost time for classes to start. Even though all this has happened, we still need to attend." Everyone reluctantly agreed and got up to get to class. I bet everyone wasn't going to pay an ounce of attention anyway, but it was necessary.

During Ms. Pheros' class, I kept a close eye on Lissa and the people around her, in case they began to laugh at her again. She shouldn't have to go through this – neither should Chrom. There just had to be something we could do; anything at all as long as it helped get the real story from Chrom and ended this reign of false rumors. Though I also knew that I wasn't going to get anywhere with just thinking of it by myself – I needed to talk to Chrom, we all needed to. That was the only way to get the story from him and the story coming from his own lips would be perfect for getting word out there that it was all a misunderstanding.

While I was wrapped up in my thoughts in Mr. Excellus' class, I barely noticed Libra approach me. Apparently, he called my name out a few times until he placed a hand on my shoulder, startling me, "Libra? What is it?"

"I was just wondering if you were still coming to the art club. There's a meeting today." Libra asked me. I was surprised he was able to remember something like that at a time like this, but I _did _say he was one of the more level-headed people of our group so he probably decided about the same thing I did and wanted to wait for Chrom to tell us the story.

Now that he mentioned the art club, I thought about it a little bit more: Perhaps I needed a moment just to relax and get this whole scandal off my mind. Sketching and painting was just the way to do that, "Yeah, I'm going. Room 216, right?"

"Yes. Well, I suppose I'll see you then." Libra smiled gently and proceeded back to his seat. I was extremely grateful for this distraction – ever since Lissa told me about Chrom's suspension yesterday, it had felt like I was walking on eggshells. I was never good with handling this sort of thing: I knew that if either Lissa or Sumia began to cry, _I _would cry and it would just be a terrible mess and nothing would get solved unless someone thought of something spectacular.

As soon as classes were over, I headed on over to room 216 where the art club was taking place with Libra. It was nice not being alone to roam the hallways with just my thoughts plaguing me and rumors bombarding my ears. Libra provided a nice preoccupation on the way – he kept talking with me until we arrived at the art club. He was mostly debriefing me about what they do in the art club, who the members were and why there weren't many members. I listened attentively with a slight smile on my face; he obviously noticed how much worry Chrom's suspension got to everyone and decided to one-by-one make us feel better. It must have been all that he learned from being so devoted to the Church of Naga.

Finally we arrived at the art club where, just as we entered, a ton of easels fell on top of someone. Immediately, Libra and I rushed in to help the person who was underneath all the easels. When we dug him out, I recognized him to be Henry – who Libra had mentioned was a part of the art club. He had odd sliver hair and a constant smile on his face, despite the fact he had a bunch of easels fall right on top of him. He wore dark clothing top to bottom. Henry was one of the Plegians that Gangrel usually hung around with, but Libra assured me before I arrived that he wasn't like the other Plegians – he wasn't going to force me into performing strange rituals and he wasn't going to try and convince me to join a weird religion. Looking at him now, I knew Libra's words to be true – Henry was much too… I couldn't quite put a word to it. Care-free? Perhaps.

"Is this the new person? Hoo-ray! Nice t' meetcha, I'm Henry!" Henry greeted, grabbing my hand and shaking it furiously, almost knocking me to the floor.

"Yes, Henry. This is Teresa." Libra introduced us, but then veered his attention to a black-haired girl sitting in front of a canvas with a beautiful painting on it, "Say'ri! Our new member is here!" The girl took a moment to put the finishing touches on her painting before setting down her palette and paintbrush on the table. She turned toward us and came on over with a friendly smile on her face.

"Greetings, friend. How fares you? My name is Say'ri." The girl, Say'ri, said. I smiled back at her old-fashioned, yet polite way of speech. She had long straight black hair and kind brown eyes. She was wearing a simple purple button-up blouse and a simple black skirt that reached her knees. On her feet were white flats with a strap going over her foot to the other side of the flat. She seemed like the modest sort because she was wearing nylons, despite the fact that her skirt was already covering the more important parts. I had never really met this girl until now because I had never been introduced to her by Lissa – either because Lissa wasn't acquainted with her or she recently just transferred here. Either way, I was glad to have met her, she was a pretty nice person so far.

"I'm great, thank you. My name is Teresa." I greeted in return.

"Oooh! Hey, Libra, now that we've got a new person how about we do something fun!" Henry suggested with enthusiasm.

"Well, what did you have in mind?" He wondered.

"I was thinking about an 'Art off!' kinda thing. You know, I make something, she makes something, you make something and we show it off when we're all finished!" Henry explained.

Libra considered that, "That does sound good – what do you say, Teresa? It's a good way to introduce all our art styles all at once and it's a great way to get to know where the materials are." Right away I nodded to this suggestion. I was excited to know the extent of everyone's artistic ability and was even more excited to learn how I could improve my own and get tips from the others.

"Yes!" Henry celebrated, "I knew you looked like the fun sort, Teresa!" With that, all four of us went off and began working on our own thing. I wasn't superbly great at painting, but it was what I decided to do in the end – I grabbed an easel and a blank canvas and stared at the white canvas for the longest time before something came to me. I decided to do a quick painting of all of us: All of the people in the art club. It'd be easy to reference what they looked like since they were in the room with me and it would be even easier getting the colors just right. I began with Libra and tried to highlight his most prominent feature – which was him ultimately looking a lot like a girl. Henry was a little more on the difficult side as it was hard to capture his facial expression. He was always grinning, but there was a certain… unveracious look to it that took me awhile to get. Meanwhile, for Say'ri, she was fairly easy to get down on the canvas – drawing her made me actually see how long her hair was: It was almost down to her thighs! I was surprised and almost envious of it because it was so straight and shiny while mine only looked good if I put it up where it was out of sight and pinned back.

We all spent a good hour working on our creations to show them off to our club members. I wasn't quite finished of mine because I wasn't the faster painter since I wasn't great at it. Yet, Say'ri just used the painting she was working on when I got there so of course she finished soon after we called out the Art Off. Libra and Henry were in the same boat I was in, however, but finished products weren't what we were looking for – just a sampling of our artistic abilities.

"All right, since Teresa's the new person here we should see hers first." Libra suggested to which no one disagreed on. I flushed as usual; I was always embarrassed to show off my work because I always judged it harshly and I believed everyone else would feel the same.

Anyway, I turned the canvas around and showed off the half-finished painting of all of us. They stared at it for quite some time which caused me to fill up with anxiety – I hoped they didn't think it was poor. That made me wonder, could they kick me out of the club if I wasn't good enough? Soon, I got so full of distraught I just had to ask, "Does it look all right?"

"Look all right? Nya ha ha – it's almost like looking in a mirror! You're really good with that realism stuff!" Henry told me cheerfully. That surprised me and caused me to look down at my creation – was my skill in realism that good? Or was he just saying that to make me feel better? It was true that realism was one of my favorite style of drawing, but I didn't think I was too hot at it.

"I agree. You are very good!" Say'ri smiled.

"Truly you have been blessed with a great talent for art." Libra told me.

I blushed, "You're all too much. But, anyway, I want to see all of yours!" I diverted the attention from my work quickly and transferred it over to the others. They seemed to understand and Henry was the next one to show off his art skills. He pulled out from behind him a clay sculpture of a skull. It was very meticulously done – you could see fine cracks in it and the bones were pointed accurately (almost frighteningly so). The only thing was, because he didn't have time to finish it, the lower jaw wasn't connected to the rest of the skull and was only half-formed. Henry grinned as he waited for the commentary.

"Very typical Henry." Libra said sarcastically, chuckling.

"You mean you make stuff like this all the time?" I wondered, approaching it to get a better look, "I think it's awesome! I can't do anything with clay, let alone something like this!"

"Thanks! Usually I'd make an organ or something, but I've run out of human organs to create! Nya ha!" Henry laughed which caused me to shiver at how he was able to say something like that with a giant sardonic grin on his face.

"If only I could laugh with you also, Henry…," Say'ri sighed but there was a ghost of a smile on her face. Right away, I turned over to her.

"Can we see yours next, Say'ri?" I wondered.

"Aye… but it is nowhere near everyone else's level." Say'ri told me as she brought out the canvas with the painting she was working on before and I was completely awed. It was amazing – it was a pond with lily-pads floating in the water. The painting seemed to take place in the early morning because there were pink shades in the water. The water was the most prominent part of the painting – Say'ri paid close attention on it, it seemed because it almost looked realistic. If I didn't know any better, I would have said I was there in the painting myself. It was such a colorful painting, it was both calming and breathtaking.

"Oh my goodness! That's beautiful – how long have you been working on it?" I asked.

"The past week now. Inspiration just struck me all of a sudden after I… met someone." Say'ri blushed. I smiled at her; it must be nice to have someone that you'd want to do a symbolic painting of.

"Your paintings just keep getting better, Say'ri." Libra commented.

"I was never fond of oils, but it seems to work for you!" Henry chirped.

"My gratitude, everyone. Now, enough of mine – let's see your work, Libra." Say'ri said, much like how I did. Libra obliged and pulled out a thick piece of paper and I was surprised at what I saw on it. It was a realism, much like how I did my painting, but instead of all of us and instead of using a pencil, it was just me done in charcoal. I was shocked at how much he paid attention to detail – he even did my hair wild and loopy like how I thought it'd be, but he seemed to make it a little calmer than it should have been. Also due to the lack of time, he only got the bust done (not my _boobs _as in bust, but the head and shoulders type thing) and the paper he did it on offered room for my whole body.

"I like to do realism as well, but I prefer charcoal. Also, I didn't draw you to be creepy, if that's what you were thinking, Teresa." Libra quickly explained. That surprised me, I wasn't even thinking that in the slightest – I found it really nice that he'd take time to draw me, if you wanted to know the truth.

"N-no! I wasn't thinking that at all!" I replied, flustered.

"I have a custom where I draw all the members of our club and post it under the 'Members' tag hanging there." Libra pointed to the far end of the classroom where there was a sign that said 'Art Club Members' and underneath were drawings of Libra, Henry and Say'ri; much like the one of me done by Libra, was there, "I hadn't had much opportunity to do this as there aren't a lot of members, but I hope you don't mind that I drew you and am prepared to place it there when I'm finished."

"Of course not! It kind of seems official if you do it that way!" I told him happily.

"Excellent. Thank you." Libra smiled, "Anyway, we'll end here for the art club meeting. Just to refresh your memory, Teresa, we meet on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays." With that we all put away our supplies we used for our Art Off and went our separate ways.

While I was roaming the hallways after the art club meeting, I kept thinking of it: I thought of all the fun memories I was going to have being there and I thought of all the friends I was going to make. Libra, of course, but also Henry and Say'ri. They were all interested in art like I was and they were all very kind to me thus far. Of course, because I was new, they probably wanted to be as nice to me as possible in order to keep me but for some reason I felt as though that wasn't the case. It could have been but judging from their personalities, there was no way that could be true.

Though, before I left the school to go home, I realized I had forgotten to take home my textbook that I needed for homework. Relieved that I actually recalled that when I had been so distracted by the art club and the possibilities it held, I made my way to my locker. Though, on my way, I heard someone talking nearby – but I just ignored it and continued. Yet, while I was putting in my combination, my heart froze when another voice I recognized came after the first one – there was no doubt in my mind that it was Lon'qu. Curiosity enveloped me and I just had to find out what was going on. Call me a stalker, I just had to find out. When I turned around the corner, I spotted Say'ri talking with Lon'qu. I couldn't quite hear what they were talking about, but I could capture a few words.

"…almost as skilled… Yen'fay-sensei…," This was Say'ri who was talking.

"I have no need… praise. Say what… say." Lon'qu replied.

"Well… I just wanted to know… you felt about me… inside and out kendo…," Say'ri asked him which caused the color to drain from my face. I couldn't quite hear that great, but I knew what she meant by _that_. She was wondering if Lon'qu liked her as a woman! Tears stung in my eyes as this dawned on me. What was Lon'qu going to say? Did he like her? Were they going to go out after this? Was I not good enough for him; was Say'ri much better than I was? A pain stabbed my chest and I clenched my hand over my heart, gathering up my shirt in my fist. I closed my eyes to prevent the tears from coming through as I listened on.

"…think of you… peer… nothing more." Lon'qu told her. It should have been outlawed for me to feel the amount of relief I felt when I heard those words. Immediately, I felt really bad for both spying on them and not wishing for Say'ri and Lon'qu to get together. That was completely selfish of me – especially when I kept telling myself every time I spoke with Lon'qu that he'd never like me. Just because I liked him didn't mean that no one should get him if I couldn't!

"But… I… like you…!" Say'ri protested.

"If you're not… to listening… I'm going…," Lon'qu replied and with that I could hear footsteps retreating. I knew I shouldn't have been feeling like celebrating but I really felt like jumping through the ceiling at that moment. Just as I was about to walk to my locker and get the textbook then leave, I heard footsteps running down the hallway, in the same direction the others had gone. Instantly, the celebratory feeling was deflated – judging from the footsteps alone, it was enough to tell that Say'ri wasn't going to give up any time soon. I sighed as a sense of unworthiness and jealousy crept into my heart.


	6. Chapter 6

How many students were in the school again? That's right – roughly 750 if I remembered correctly. I put this into account as I scribbled down my plans for Chrom's Presidential Campaign. After I did so, I looked sorrowfully across the cafeteria table at Chrom who was as withdrawn as he had been the day of his return. It had been a week since the incident with Gangrel and now that Chrom was back we had figured we'd get the truth from him. We wanted to know and wanted to believe that he didn't really beat up Gangrel, but he looked at us with a blank expression and answered with, "Yes, I did beat him up. I don't regret anything, either."

If that didn't let the rumors buzz much louder, I didn't know what did.

Everyone had been ostracizing Chrom, either giving him glares from afar or boldly going and putting terrible graffiti all over his locker. They called him the Blue-Haired Bully and other horrific things that shouldn't be mentioned. Gangrel, on the other hand, was getting more and more people on his side by the day – which was a very disturbing odd for me as Chrom's Presidential Advisor. Though, throughout this whole time, every one of Chrom's friends tried to stay by him and support him. It was difficult, because we ultimately got insulted as well for siding with the 'Blue-Haired Bully'. I didn't care – I couldn't speak for the rest, but all I knew was that I didn't care what they thought of Chrom or what he did – I was determined to help him win the spot as Student Council President and I was even more determined in trying to get those rumors to die down!

"I have a few more poster ideas and I also have an idea that we could possibly execute on Friday." I announced to Chrom once I had written down my idea. He seemed so distracted, I was surprised he heard me at all. He looked back at me and I could clearly see the pain behind them, but I was weak and I continued, refusing to meet with such eyes, "Um… A slogan we could use for a poster could be: 'This is it, your final decision. You're a valued friend of mine and no destiny can change that – vote Chrom now!' and 'He is the wind at your back and the sword at your side. Vote Chrom and he shall build a better school.' Also, to boost votes we could possibly give out either candy or some trinkets if people write down something they would like to see change in the school. How does that sound to you?"

"I like it – certainly an improvement from the fruit of the looms." Chrom joked.

"Hah ha, very funny." I replied sarcastically when in actuality, I felt like pointing out that he seemed to be feeling better due to the fact that he was tossing out japes again. I was just about to tell him something similar instead when I noticed someone putting up a poster behind Chrom. Looking closer, I noticed that it was a muscular bald dark skinned man wearing a navy blue t-shirt and grey sweat pants with red running shoes. I easily identified him as Basilio – one of the others running to be Student Council President. Immediately, an idea came into my head, "How about we look at the competition?"

Chrom was understandably confused, "What?" Before I replied, I grabbed a hold of his arm, walked around the edge of the cafeteria table and dragged the blue haired man behind me toward Basilio.

"We've been worried about other things as of late and we didn't get around to meeting the other people running for Student Council President. Knowing your competition will give us an edge – it may even grant us your victory." I explained before Basilio was in earshot. Now that Chrom understood my motives, I released his arm and we approached the big man who seemed to be struggling with putting up his poster, "Hey, Basilio!" I called, gaining his attention; but we distracted him from putting up the poster and it fell right to the floor.

Basilio turned around with a frustrated look on his face, but when he saw Chrom and I approaching, an eyebrow of interest rose to his non-existent hairline, "Why, if it isn't the Blue-Haired Bully and his apprentice the Plain Jane. Did you want to talk to me about something?" Instantly I fumed at the name – I wasn't plain! I was just… uniquely ordinary. OK, that didn't sound too good, so in the end, I decided to forget he even said it.

"Nicknames aside, yes, we wanted to talk to you. About running for Student Council President." I explained. Basilio stooped down to grab for the fallen poster and I sort of eyed it before he began to put it up on the wall again. I would have burst out laughing if I wasn't struck with shock at what it said on it. It seriously had a large picture of a butt with the words, 'Vote for my big arse!' I looked at him with incredulity, "You're _really _going to put that on the wall?"

"Yeah, you got a problem with that? Or do you find it too attractive?" Basilio asked me with a grin smeared all across his face as he ripped a piece of tape and stuck it to the poster. I frowned at him.

"Not at all. But anyway, this is Chrom as you already know. He's also running for Student Council President." I told him, moving out of the way so Basilio could see Chrom standing there better. Chrom stepped forward without hesitance. I let out a sigh of relief – last week he probably wouldn't have been able to do that: He was terribly weighed down by the onslaught of rumors and name-calling that he found it difficult to approach anyone. Now that it had died down a little, he was getting back to being the Chrom we all knew and loved.

"Here's to doing our best in our run for Student Council President." Chrom said, really official and everything as he waited with his hand out to shake. Basilio didn't take it, but instead laughed really loudly, grabbing everyone in the cafeteria's attention. Chrom turned to me, but I just shrugged – I didn't know where this sprung from. Or why he had to laugh loud enough for everyone to hear.

"'Doing our best'? I thought this poster was enough to let you know that I don't care to be Student Council President!" Basilio told us, which was shocking news. What the heck did he think he was doing?! He obviously picked up that unspoken question because he continued, "No, Flavia challenged me into running for Student Council to see who got more votes than the other. So we just signed up not expecting to be winners except for our own challenge."

"I… see…," Chrom replied, uncertain.

Basilio clapped Chrom on the back, "You don't have to bother with us – you're more likely to win than us, that's for sure!" I crossed my arms and sighed; besides Gangrel, _this _was our competition? I was grateful, don't get me wrong – but it was still a pathetic reason to want to run for Student Council President. It was then that a tanned girl with a thick blonde hair tied tightly back into a ponytail came rushing over with a bucket of black paint and a thick paintbrush. She was wearing a comfortable plain white t-shirt with red skinny jeans and tall black boots. She dipped the paintbrush in the paint and swiped a big black X over Basilio's poster that he finally got up.

She grinned, "I think people would rather they have a Student Council President who doesn't have butts all over the school but instead censors them." She turned around to everyone in the cafeteria and to whoever was listening, she shouted, "Vote Flavia!"

"Don't tell me you did that to _all _my posters!" Basilio growled. Flavia just shrugged and quickly made her escape before Basilio grabbed the paint bucket and dumped it over her head, "Flavia!" Basilio charged right after her, instantly forgetting myself and Chrom.

I rolled my eyes, "Well, that was sort of relieving, I suppose – in its own way." Chrom turned to me, chuckling at that. Just as Chrom was about to say something back to me, I overheard two students chattering about Student Council, most likely due to the fact the whole scene with Flavia and Basilio wanting to win against the other and shouting in the cafeteria.

"Hey, did you hear about all the people who are voting for Gangrel?" One person murmured.

"Yeah… it seems every day there are more people declaring that they're going to vote for Gangrel." The other person said, "And I have to admit, I'm most likely going to be voting for him as well."

"Why would you say that?" The first person asked.

"The others… well, they just don't seem suitable to be Student Council President. I mean, you heard Basilio just now, didn't you? Those two weren't taking it seriously at all! Not only that, but the other one running for Student Council President is… _him_; Chrom." He then brought his voice down super low and snuck a glance at Chrom, I noticed, but didn't seem to realize that I was listening in. He carried on the conversation, "He beat up Gangrel – he probably saw what a great Student Council President he'd be and beat him up to try to make him drop out of running. I would _never _vote for someone like that."

The first guy nodded, "I agree. I suppose I'll just vote for Gangrel, too."

I furrowed my eyebrows at this conversation – it was frustrating how nearly everyone thought Chrom was a brute and wasn't worthy to be the Student Council President. I knew what Chrom did, but I wasn't going to completely judge him like everyone else was. If only everyone else could do the same… If only there was a way to clear Chrom's name…

"Teresa?" Chrom broke through my thoughts.

I shook my head, "What, sorry?" I laughed sheepishly, "Must have zoned out."

"So it would seem." Chrom said lightheartedly, with a slight smile, "Anyway, I was saying that we should also get a move on with those posters you suggested – just to get the ball rolling. I could contact someone to draw our posters, if you wish. I'd just like to get started soon as we only have around a month left for campaigning." At this realization, I was thunderstruck; we only had a month left?! I still had to do something about those rumors and I still had to set up dates of when it would be acceptable for everyone to help out with the passing out of candies and all that. I was so wrapped up in what was happening that I didn't realize we had so little time!

"Oh shoot! I should have been more cognisant of how much time we had left, but I didn't realize there was so little time!" I exclaimed. Even though I was distraught, I tried to clear my head and think of the best course of action, "OK… yes, if you'd ask either Libra or Say'ri to draw the posters for you that would be great. Meanwhile, I'll ask around to see who would like to volunteer to pass around candies or whatever. Does that sound good?"

Chrom laughed, "You're overthinking this too much, Teresa. It sounds fine, if you must know – but you need to calm down before you ask anyone anything." I nodded in understanding, but looked off to the side, not able to fully shake off my anxious cloak. I didn't want to tell him that I wanted to add a way to clear his name on that list I just said aloud. For some reason, I had the feeling Chrom would just tell me it wasn't necessary and that I was already doing enough for him. Typical Chrom.

"I'll keep that in mind. Anyway, I'll get to that. See you again – oh!" A thought suddenly came into my head just as I was about to turn around. I put a hand on Chrom's shoulder, "Just so you know, Chrom, you're not alone – you've got all your friends. The reason we're still around is not because we feel obligated to, it's because we want to. We want you to know you can tell us anything and can rely on us."

Chrom looked torn, but he said, "Of course, Teresa. Thank you." With that, Chrom turned away from me and began walking to the cafeteria doors. Watching his back, I couldn't help but feel dejected; it felt as though Chrom couldn't rely on us ever since he got suspended for beating up Gangrel, which was why I had the need to say what I did to him. Why couldn't he trust us?

Anyway, I left the cafeteria trying to forget about all that for a moment. I tried to focus on what I could do to clear Chrom's name somehow. I could try spreading word out of the rumors about Gangrel that were going around before this whole thing with Chrom beating Gangrel. Maybe I could remind the student body of what kind of parents the person they wanted to vote for had and see that he wasn't very fit to become Student Council President. Ah… but then they could just return that for what Chrom did to Gangrel whereas Gangrel's hands were clean. I bit on my thumb, trying to think of something – anything – that might help. I could try to talk Chrom up and say the kind of schooling he had in the past, talk about his prestigious family and talk about what a positive leader he was. But would they even listen to that? Argh! This was too –

"Oof!" A voice interrupted my thoughts and halted my walking as I ran into them. Whoever I ran into dropped all the papers they had in their hands and it pooled all across the floor.

I looked to see who I ran into and noticed it was Sumia, "Oh, sorry, Sumia! I didn't mean to do that; here let me help you." I stooped down and picked up the pieces of paper that were in Sumia's hands and began to pile them together for her.

"Thank you, Teresa." Sumia said, a smile on her face and the word 'gratitude' seeming to be printed right on her forehead, "Knowing me, I would have missed at least one of them which would have gotten me into a lot of trouble."

"What is it?" I wondered, looking down at the papers with curiosity.

"The secretary asked me to pick up the papers which have a list of courses on it for next year." Sumia told me, picking up some more papers, "Not only that, but she went ahead and printed off the list of clubs offered as well. She's such a nice lady at the office, but she's quite the trooper, isn't she? I mean, going ahead and doing this all in January when we don't even have to decide our next courses until the end of April."

"Yes, indeed she is…," For some reason, the word 'club' a sudden thought hit me. If I could form my own 'club' so to speak, gain lots of club members… we would be able to gain intel on what we could do to clear Chrom's name by utilizing all their different and unique skills. Perhaps… perhaps we could even track down Gangrel and find out his weakness or a dirty secret of his and expose him for all he was worth! Yes… Yes, it was perfect! I put a hand on Sumia's shoulder, startling her, "Sumia, you're a genius!"

She was stunned, "I-I am?"

"Of course you are! Now, how willing would you be to join a group hoping to clear Chrom's name?" I asked her, but even before she nodded her head wildly, I knew the answer. She had been seeking to clear Chrom's name since it was tarnished.

"Yes! Oh, yes I would love to!" She smiled.

"All right, then I have a task for you – gather as many people as you can to join this group. Tell them we're going to be meeting after school to have a discussion about what we're about to do. I'll do the same and then we'll meet in cafeteria as soon as last class is over." I instructed.

She gave me a determined nod, "OK! …but first, I have to deliver this to the secretary." I nodded in understanding and from there we split up – I went in the exact opposite direction she was headed to cover the other half of the school. I knew just who to talk to – those who stuck by Chrom's side even after all this had happened. During my walk, I bumped into Frederick and Sully who happened to be in the same hallway as the other. I told them about my idea and they quickly agreed; and I let them know if they could pass on the message before lunch break was over. We only had about another ten minutes left and I wanted to gather as much people as we could. In that duration also, I ran into Vaike and Stahl before it was time for me to get to class. I hoped those who I told already would gather a lot of people – the more people we had, the faster we would be able to clear Chrom's name. Since we only had a month left, we needed to move swiftly and effectively.

I was basically drumming my fingers impatiently during all of the last two classes and I would have been pacing as well but I was sitting so I had to settle for tapping my foot. My heart was racing and I didn't even know why – I shouldn't be nervous, I knew that because everyone who would join this group would be all people I knew but still I was anxious as anything from everything that's been going on and the realization of the time limit I had and I couldn't help but feel a little worried.

Finally, classes were out at an agonizingly slow pace and I just about burst from the room and made my way to the cafeteria. I hoped I was the first one there because I didn't want to keep them waiting if they hadn't started without me, that is. If they began without me, I didn't care much but I kind of wanted to start off the whole thing since I created it… perhaps that was my ego talking, but whatever. Yet, when I got there I noticed that there was quite the crowd gathering that were either already there or were just getting there like I was. Among them were Frederick, Sully, Sumia, Lissa, Vaike, Stahl, Virion, and Donnel. As soon as they saw me, they all turned to me with almost of an impatient look about them.

"Hurry up and get over here, leader! We ain't got all day!" Vaike called out to me.

I sat down, "'Leader'?"

"Yeah, you're the one who had the idea, so we decided that you were our leader." Sumia smiled. That caused me to blush and caused that ego I was telling you about to bulge. I decided to forget it and get started on what I wanted to talk to them about.

"Anyway, so I'm sure you were told what this group's goal is: To clear Chrom's name." I announced, "The voting for Student Council President is occurring in another month so we have to do this swiftly and effectively. We need to have people realize that what Chrom did to Gangrel was an isolated event and make them realize that he is more than adequate for the spot of Student Council President. Also, but not least, we're not to tell Chrom about this. He'd just discourage us from doing such a thing."

Vaike raised his hand like we were in class, but spoke before we could say anything, "Can we name our group? Because I have an awesome idea for us!"

"I don't see why not." I laughed, "What did you have in mind?"

"The Awesome Gangstaz!" Vaike exclaimed, flexing his cannons. Everyone just gave him a weird look or snorted at him. He was so serious it was almost humorous.

"Nah, that name sounds like it came from the manure pile!" Donnel waved his hand at him, "How 'bout somethin' like… the Red Bullets?!" I shrugged at that one; it was nice, but it wasn't… suiting. We needed something that sort of fit and wasn't too extravagant.

"What was that about manure piles? Because I think you pulled that one from it." Sully crossed her arms, thinking hard about a name she'd like with one eye closed, "I like the Fire Breathin' Kittens!" There was a moment of silence, but then Sully added defensively, "Hey, it fits both the girly girls and the boys!"

"How about El Diablo? I heard it on a movie and it sounded pretty cool." Frederick suggested. Vaike quickly agreed with Frederick's recommendation as he had seen that movie as well. They jumped on a side conversation about the movie while the rest of us continued thinking up names.

"What about the Dream Team?" Sumia added. I had to admit the rhyme nearly got to me, but for some reason, like Donnel's, it didn't fit for us.

"I think it would befit us to have a name such as the Ylissean Soldiers." Virion threw in which received a lot of recognition. I liked it a lot and was even considering using it for our code name when Stahl suddenly piped up.

"How about the Shepherds?" He wondered. Everyone stopped whatever it was they were doing and stared at Stahl for a moment until he began to get really uncomfortable, "S-sorry… that must sound…,"

"No! It's perfect, actually!" I blurted out.

"Really?" Stahl said, interested that his idea was well-received. Everyone else seemed to like the name that Stahl suggested, even Vaike who seemed so set on us being named the 'Awesome Gangstaz'. When I saw everyone agree to the name, I knew it was what we were to use.

"All right! Then we shall be known as the Shepherds and our mission is to clear Chrom's name!" I declared.


	7. Chapter 7

"All right, now that we've got a name, what's going to be our first move?" Sully wondered, which made all heads turn to me. Even though it was nerve-wracking to have all eyes on me and to be the one making the decisions (while I was usually the one who hung back and let others decide things) I jumped on the occasion to voice my thought I had since I decided to set up the whole concept of the Shepherds.

"I was thinking that we could keep tabs Gangrel and find a weakness of his… or a secret he has. That way, we could expose or possibly use it against him and thus make him out to be a worse choice than Chrom."

Frederick nodded, "That sounds like a good idea. Though, I don't think _all _of us should go – we wouldn't want him to spot us easily. Perhaps only the more swift and silent of us." Frederick's suggestion made sense, so I scanned my options: Vaike was much too loud to have him tail Gangrel, but he could be useful for watching out for him since he had a lot of classes with Gangrel. Frederick would be a good choice for tailing – he was both conscious of his presence and he was very critical and would easily find insignificant details that most of us wouldn't pick up on. Sumia, well not to be rude, but she might trip and give herself away – though she was quick to sense if something's amiss; she'd be good for scanning from afar and still be able to pick up anything we might miss. Sully was a little on the bold side and wouldn't like it if I just made her hang out in the back so she'd go with Frederick. Stahl was competent to go by himself so perhaps I'd pair him up with Donnel to give him an extra pair of eyes. As for Virion… he was a bit aloof, if you wanted to know the truth; he'd probably be good for keeping a close eye from a distance. As for myself, it'd probably be best if I didn't watch him – since I was Chrom's Presidential Advisor, Gangrel would probably be more liable to notice if I began watching him. I could only hope he wouldn't catch the others.

When I suggested this plan of attack so to speak, no one had any qualms with it so it was easily decided, "Perfect; so starting tomorrow we shall get into position – those tailing Gangrel and the Plegians will begin their watch on each break: In the morning, lunch and in the afternoon. Those keeping tabs will be watching him in class. We'll meet here every day after class if we are available and discuss our findings. For now, this meeting is over. See you then!"

With that, we went our separate ways, but with the same goal in mind. A fiery determination coursed through my veins: One way or another, I was going to find out Gangrel's weakness and use it to help Chrom; nothing was going to stop me!

Though that determination quickly waned on the first day after we decided to tail Gangrel. Everyone admitted that they couldn't find a single thing that they could call a weakness. My hopes were shot: There were about seven people watching Gangrel and not one of them could find a single thing? I pushed those thoughts aside for the time being, there was no way we could give up just now… it was only the first day. Of course Gangrel wouldn't let anything slip. We just had to be more diligent in our watch. But it happened again the second day of keeping tabs on Gangrel: Nothing. Well, Vaike suggested that his weakness was ham sandwiches because that was all he ate every day. Yet, still, nothing. I stubbornly didn't want to give up still because even though the odds were increasingly outweighing us, I wanted to see if the third day was the charm. Though, on the third day, everyone came up empty-handed.

"Nothing? Are you absolutely sure you couldn't find anything?" I wondered when we came together on the third day. I didn't mean to sound so rude and demanding, but that was the way it came out of my mouth. Everyone present bowed their heads in disappointment.

"That da** Gangrel just covers his tracks closely, is all. We'll get 'im if we keep tryin'." Sully said hopefully.

"He does indeed. He can't have a clean record with the parents he was rumored to have. Perhaps we could search the school files for his information?" Frederick suggested. I had to admit, that idea was probably going to get us closer to finding out his weakness than tailing behind him when he was already cleaning up the mess he might have made before we came.

"That'll get us in trouble!" Sumia protested.

"Then you'd have us give up on Chrom?!" Frederick fired back, angry. From under his harsh eye, tears began to form in Sumia's eyes.

"Frederick, I understand your anger but there's no need to be mean to Sumia. If anyone wants to help Chrom, it's Sumia." I mediated calmly. This was beginning to get out of hand: Everyone was getting frustrated with our lack of luck on the Gangrel front; myself included. I almost wanted to shout at Frederick to calm down, but reminded myself that there was no need to start a potential fight over this.

"Then what do you suppose we do? Gangrel's not giving us an edge." Stahl inquired. I hung my head in shame. Some leader I was; I had absolutely no answer to that question. Frustration bundled up inside of me, but I wouldn't dare show it to anyone… I had to act fast before everyone decided to disband the Shepherds we had just formed a few days ago.

"Just… how about just one more day?" I opted out of all the ideas that came to my head. Everyone looked up at me hopelessly, "How about one more day of tailing Gangrel and if we don't find anything again, then we we'll stop. Does that agree with everyone?" I was met with half-nods from some people while others just got up and left the cafeteria without saying anything. I understood their frustration and impatience because I had it too, but one more day of scouting met the needs of everyone: It would give those who wanted to keep going to go and it would give those who wanted to quit just one more day.

Sadly, I was the last one to get up and leave our little meeting spot. I was so determined to expose Gangrel since I thought of our group that we decided to call the Shepherds. Now that it wasn't working like how I wanted it, my mood was significantly dampened. I was a terrible leader and an even worse Presidential Advisor; I had felt like I had failed Chrom.

Looking up at the poster I had designed on the wall near my locker for Chrom, sadness' cold hand wrapped around my heart. If we didn't find out anything about Gangrel, this whole Presidential Campaign was all for naught: All it did was ruin Chrom's reputation. No matter how hard we tried to clear it, nothing was coming up; it seemed that Chrom would forever remain the Blue Haired Bully… and I was powerless to stop it.

Passing by the poster to get to my locker, I was surprised to see a piece of paper sticking out from my locker. With furrowed brows, I looked around to see if anyone was around who might have placed that there. The hallway was completely empty. Carefully, I took it out, just in case and saw writing on one side. Turning over, I whispered what it read to myself:

_Meet me in the library tomorrow at 12:15pm. Go into the third cubicle from the window. Come alone._

I stared at the note for the longest time, wondering who wrote this. Was it Chrom? Did he finally want to discuss something in private to me involving the whole scene with Gangrel? Or was it Gangrel himself? Did he notice us tailing him and trace it back to me? My hand that was holding the note shook from worry. Who was it who sent this note?

Still, I told myself to follow these instructions; who knows – the person who sent it may actually end up helping me. I folded the note and placed it carefully inside my kitbag. Even if they ended up being Gangrel who only wanted to dissuade us, I was still going. At this point, I was going to do just about anything to help Chrom.

The next day, I was in such a rush to get to the library as soon as class over it wasn't even funny. I basically tackled anyone who got in my way as I marched on; ever since I read the note, I kept thinking about who it could be, what they wanted to discuss and so forth. I wasn't going to slip this up.

When I went into the library, it was only five after twelve, but I didn't care. I searched around for the third cubicle from the window desperately but found it thanks to the fact that there was only one set of cubicles by the windows. I took a seat and waited impatiently.

"You're awful early." A voice suddenly said in a hushed tone. Startled, I searched around frantically for who said that but there was no one around me, "In front of you." Looking at the cubicle ahead of me, I noticed only the top of a head of a person with black hair poking out from behind the wall. I was about to stand up and take a look to see who was talking to me, but the person hissed, "Don't look! Just listen!"

I quickly sat down, dumbfounded at her reaction, "All right, what did you want to tell me?" I heard a low chuckle from the person's side.

"I have been watching you for some time now. I know your intention is to clear Chrom's name and I also know how… _successful_ you've been." The person said. Even though I couldn't see them properly, I knew now that by their somewhat sarcastic voice that they were female.

"Well, that saves me from filling you in." I whispered back.

"Exactly. So, I'm here to give you some insight about Gangrel." She told me. That certainly caught my attention. I stared at the wall that was barricading my vision from seeing the girl in front of me, but I tried not to let it deter my information gathering. She continued, "Gangrel has manipulated the Student Council President position so he is second only to Walhart when it comes to the dominance of the school. If he becomes Student Council President now, he'd be able to change certain policies, have the power to kick students out of the school and even fire teachers if he really wanted to."

That caused me to frown, wondering how he was able to do something like that, but decided not to ask. Gangrel had a poor reputation before Chrom's was stained; he'd have his resources, "I suppose getting beaten up by Chrom was worth it for him, if that's the case."

"Chrom's sullied name sure was helpful to him, that's for sure. Not to mention that his own Presidential Campaign involves threatening his peers into voting for him."

"What?" I murmured, shocked. If what she was telling me was all true up to now, Gangrel was sinking so low just to get a couple more votes that he'd actually threaten the other students who were still faithful to Chrom to vote for him instead? I couldn't believe my ears. How could we have missed that when we were tailing Gangrel? I supposed that no matter how long we tailed him in _school_ it wouldn't capture what he did out of school.

"You heard me." The girl merely said.

"How do you know all this?" I asked, suddenly suspicious.

"Let's just say that I'm one of the few privy to Gangrel's dirty secrets." The girl told me, but I wasn't about to let that be the only slip into her identity.

"You're a Plegian, aren't you?" I guessed and judging by her silence the answer to that was a yes. My heart rate quickened as a whole bunch of questions raced into my head. I tried my best to filter them out so I could slowly get more information out of her, "What are you doing, betraying Gangrel like this when all he's ever thought of were the Plegians?"

There was another long stretch of quiet, as if she were weighing out how much she could spill to me, then she plainly said, "It's none of your business how I do something. All you have to know is that I'm giving you vital information and how you should be thanking me rather than interrogating me." Her sudden hostile tone made me wary. If I messed up, she might change her mind about giving me information about Gangrel.

"I-I apologize. I was just curious." I admitted, turning red.

"Whatever." She sighed, "Anyway, I've got one last little hint for you before I have to go: Do a little digging around of the history of this school. You'll find something I bet you'll find somewhat useful." With that, the girl, while keeping her face hidden from me got up and left the library. I curiously watched her go; still wondering who she was.

Though I decided to forget who she might be and got up from the cubicle while taking her words and her hint to heart. I figured that since I was in the library, I might as well look up to see if there were any texts on the history of Ylisse High. Approaching the librarian about it, she directed me to this old-looking book that smelled so musty that I was almost afraid to open it.

Ignoring my nagging stomach even though lunch time was almost over, I returned to the cubicle and began reading. The first few pages were just on the creation of the building, who commissioned it and other boring things. Though, when I flipped to the pages where it listed the Principals back in the day, I caught something quite interesting. There was a man that was the Principal of Ylisse High back in 1997, the year that the seniors at our school would have been just born, that had the same look and last name as Chrom. That must have been Chrom's father or at least an uncle of his; which was the part that struck me the most. Chrom never once mentioned that he had a relative that was the Principal of Ylisse High at one point.

Curiosity prompting further inquiry, I closed the book over and made my way over to a free computer. Browsing the internet for more background information on Chrom's relative, I found a website that was particularly insightful. It was a rather biased site due to all the hate it seemed to have on Chrom's relative, but I decided to ignore it.

I murmured the text under my breath as I began to read the page just as a really important line came up in my search, "…the Principal ruined the lives of the Plegians who wanted a proper education: He expelled them just because of their religions. Not to mention that he also made their parents pay a hefty sum to go to school if they begged and pleaded for him to allow their children to go to school. This unfair treatment is why we Plegians began to hate him; and is why his children won't go by without our hate for what he did to us and our families!"

Pausing in my reading, a sudden revelation seemed to hit me just as I read that – Gangrel was a Plegian; so it was no wonder that he would hate on Chrom too for something his relative had done in the past. If that was the case… it's also no wonder that he was willing to threaten his peers for their vote to win against Chrom. Also, if what that Plegian girl told me was true about the Student Council President being only second to Walhart, our Principal, then it was possible that Gangrel could kick us all out of the school: Chrom, Frederick, Sully, Vaike, Lissa… everyone would be forced out of the school because of a grudge the Plegians had against Chrom's family for what happened to them in the past.

Quickly, I got up and was prepared to tell the Shepherds what I had figured out when I glanced at the clock. There was only a little bit of lunch left… there was no way I could gather them up and tell them before lunch was over. So I decided just to head to class with the information right on the tip of my tongue. As soon as we got together after school to share our gatherings, I would announce that I finally had something we could go on.

Finally – things were coming up Owain!


	8. Chapter 8

By the time I arrived at Mr. Farber's class after leaving the library, heading to my locker to get my books and drifting over to Mr. Farber's class with the thought of Chrom's relative still fresh in my mind, I noticed that there was still a half an hour left of lunch period. I supposed that still wouldn't have been enough time to tell the Shepherds about my findings because I still didn't know if I'd be interrupting anything if they had anything planned for lunch.

Still, I set my books down at my desk, but something in the corner of my eyes caught my attention. Turning over, I noticed that Lon'qu was sitting at his desk also super early along with me with paper spread out in front of him. My heart pounded against my chest: Was he and I the only ones in the classroom? I looked around and was only met with empty desks around me. This could either turn out either really bad or really good for me, if I played my cards right.

"It's Teresa, right?" Lon'qu suddenly piped up, surprising me. I hadn't expected him to be the one to speak to me first. I thought I was going to have to say something to him in order to get the ball rolling. But, hey, if he wanted to start up the conversation I was completely fine with that.

"Y-yes? Do you need s-something?" I wondered. I cursed my stammering tongue – why couldn't it act normally instead of chattering away like a magpie?

"Did you do last night's homework?" He asked, "I forgot about it until now and I need to get it done quickly. Do you mind if I borrow your answers?" I giggled shyly as I dug through my binder to find last night's homework.

"It seems a lot of people are depending on my homework nowadays. Here you go." I passed him my homework and he took a quick scan of it until he scribbled down something, eyeing it occasionally as he continued to copy down the answer, "I wasn't quite sure about the answer for number five, so I wouldn't copy that one down. Especially if Mr. Farber decides to call one of us out on an answer and both of ours ends up wrong."

As he handed me my homework back to me he said, "I thought it looked fine." He then paused a moment, looking slightly confused judging from his furrowed brow, "Why is it that you're always talking yourself down when you're obviously quite intelligent? You did it earlier when we were forced to get into pairs some time ago." I laughed at myself in self-mockery again.

"I guess I just don't have very good self-confidence in myself. I never liked talking myself up – it's too embarrassing." I admitted sadly. Feeling a little uncomfortable talking about myself, I decided to change the subject, "But, yeah… Mr. Farber sure shoves a butt-ton of work on us; it sucks being stuck with all this junky homework from his class all the time."

"You're right. It seems as though Mr. Farber doesn't consider the fact that we have lives outside of school." Lon'qu agreed, a ghost of a smile on his face. That caused me to smile right back at him – but I still couldn't believe that he was actually talking to me and I was behaving like a normal person. _Don't mess this up, Teresa… don't mess this up!_

"I know! Not just at home but we also have our clubs to attend, am I right? When we want to relax after attending the after school clubs at home, we remember 'Oh, crud! There's that homework that Mr. Farber assigned!' and then you're stressing to get it done before tomorrow." I shook my head, recalling a time when that happened to me. Ugh, I was annoyed. I cursed Mr. Farber pretty badly because I was up till around two in the morning trying to complete it.

He looked at me quizzically again, "For some reason, I can't imagine you forgetting about things like that." I blushed, embarrassed that I was going to have to admit my sometimes absent mind – one of my many flaws. Another flaw I had was laziness… and it was worse when it was paired up with my absent mind... don't even mention that to me.

"Oh, I forget about things so easily. Well, I suppose it depends on what it is; like when I start doing other things I enjoy doing, I sometimes forget what I'm supposed to actually be doing." I conceded, but not without a scarlet face, "But, yeah… all-in-all, Mr. Farber's class is all right: I mean, I don't mind the content – that's interesting. It's just the homework that I want to be changed."

Lon'qu nodded, "I agree. Speaking of content, did you understand our notes at all from yesterday? When I looked back on them, they didn't seem to make any sense." I tried my hardest not to smile like a lunatic. This was my time to shine in front of him; history was one of my favorite subjects and my mark in this class was evidence to that. Before I answered, though, I paused to make sure I didn't sound too 'duh-yesterday's-material-was-so-easy' or too 'I'm-the-best-in-the-class-Lon'qu-_notice_-_me_'. I wanted to leave him with the impression that I was smart, but modest… someone worth noting. Gee, I was making this out to be like I was in a dating simulator and I wanted to best impress a guy by selecting the right answer – I needed to act more casually!

"Yeah, I think what we went over was on the first few of the Hero-King Marth's battles." I replied, then going on to debrief him on the information that I recalled Mr. Farber talking about. For me, it was easy to remember what the teacher talked about in class, especially when I was copying down notes at the same time – I would connect the words I was writing down with the words the teacher was speaking and remember that way. That skill was probably the only way I was capable as a student.

By the time I had finished my little monologue of the Hero-King's battles, Lon'qu nodded in understand, "Now I know why I got lost; we covered a lot yesterday." I laughed sheepishly at that, remembering my mind occasionally being lost in a dither about everything that had happened in the past few days.

I didn't get a chance to reply to that before my stomach rumbled really loudly and I could just tell that Lon'qu heard it. Wide-eyed I stared down at my belly which felt like it was clawing at me for food. My cheeks flushed and I refused to meet with Lon'qu's eyes. That was severely embarrassing… I had forgotten that I hadn't had lunch due to researching about Chrom's relative.

"Um… well, that was… unexpected…," I laughed again in self-mockery.

"Didn't you have any lunch?" He asked me.

"…N-no. I didn't." I admitted, feeling stupid. Just when I was beginning to think that I was really making an impression on him, my stomach just had to interrupt me. I wonder what he would think of me now. Some girl with a weight problem? I wasn't like that at all, I just… got consumed with curiosity and had to find out what that Plegian girl was talking about.

I noticed in the corner of my eye that Lon'qu bent over and began to dig through his kitbag. He surprised me thoroughly when he pulled out an energy bar and handed it over to me, "Here, it's not much, but it should do you for the rest of the day."

"O-oh, I couldn't possibly…," I blushed. He didn't say anything as he took my hand and placed the bar into my palm. Even though it was just for a little bit, butterflies invaded my insides as he touched my hand. It was well known throughout the school that he had an unfriendliness toward women for some reason or another, but he had just taken my hand despite that fact. I couldn't have been more honored.

"Do you not have lunch every day?" Lon'qu asked. Once again, he surprised me – if I knew any better he almost sounded… concerned. I tried to act like he didn't affect me as I peeled the plastic away from the bar and took a bite of the energy bar. He probably only asked that just to keep the conversation from leaving off awkward… of course there wouldn't have sprouted from his concern for me. I was just a regular girl, after all; nothing to me.

"I try to bring a lunch every day and even when I don't I will usually buy it. Today was just… different. I didn't get a chance to eat." I explained, covering my mouth which was still full of food. I caught myself when I finished speaking – was it disgusting to be next to me when I did that? Oh no! Did I ruin everything for myself?!

He didn't seem too disturbed by it luckily, "You should always try to eat; it's good to keep your strength up." I stared at him after swallowing again, wishing thoughts wouldn't come into my head – the kind of thoughts that imagine him being actually worried about my well-being. I shrugged it off and smiled.

"Well, then I'll be counting on you to have an energy bar for when I forget to eat." I told him only half-jokingly. It would be nice if he would set aside a bar just for me in the instance I forgot about eating lunch.

"Of course." Lon'qu merely replied.

Then something popped up into my head suddenly, "Hey, Lon'qu?" He waited silently for me to continue, "This may be completely random, but I'm just… I'm curious. If you don't want to answer, that's fine, but I just wanted to throw this out there. Um… why are you… is there any particular reason for seeming to abhor the presence of a woman?"

Suddenly, with my one question, the room became undesirably quiet. My heart pounded in my chest so loud I thought it was going to pop out of my body. I really should have thought before I spoke in fear I would offend him… but it just all came spilling out of me. It was the topic of interest for everyone who knew him in the school, but the reason was never revealed. Yet, why did I have to be the idiot who had to go and ask him – especially when I liked him so much?! I almost spoke up to end the question, but Lon'qu bet me to it.

"I suppose there's no harm in telling you." Lon'qu murmured, which surprised me greatly. To him, I figured I was just a very odd classmate who he was acquainted with by, like many others, through Lissa. Sure we shared this class and we had a few run-ins and whatever, but I hadn't expected to be trusted with this kind of information! Still, I listened closely to what he had to say, "My childhood friend and I… we were really close. Yet, one day, eight years ago… we were caught in a bad car accident and while I survived… she died." He paused a moment, his eyes closed as if he was remembering the tragedy. I just looked on, unable to find the words to comfort him… I didn't know. Heck, everyone in the school probably didn't know what happened. But… to have such a trauma when he was that young... there were no words.

"Lon'qu… you don't have to continue. I'm sorry I asked; I'm sorry for bringing up such a painful memory." I apologized, feeling guilty.

"No, I'm grateful, actually. I haven't told anyone about this in a long time. It's relieving to finally tell someone about it." Lon'qu condoned. Even though I was happy that it made him feel better, I still felt bad. How could he be all right with retelling such a sad story?

"We-well… if you say so." I looked off to the side, but then was finally struck with the words to reply to his story, "But, if you ever need to tell someone anything, you can tell me! I mean, I won't tell anyone anything, I swear! My lips are sealed – see? Watch." I pretended to zip my lips up and throw away the key. I admit, a very childish thing to do, but I felt the need to do it.

He cracked a laugh at that, "Thank you, Teresa."

I smiled at him, glad that I was able to at least make him laugh a little. Continuing on the bold theme, I began to say, "Y-you know, Lon'qu… on that note, I mean the whole 'you-can-tell-me-anything' thing… What I mean to say is… I have always… wanted to talk to you more often. It would make me feel really happy if we spent more time together… just, you know, the two of us…?" My heart hammered in my chest as I said those words and I closed my eyes as I braced myself. Oh man! What was with me today?! Where did this intrepid behavior arise? Wherever it came from, it was too late to go back now. I slowly looked up to check his expression when I was startled by the presence of someone else in the room. My eyes widened as the person stared back at me with a sort of shocked fury.

Say'ri?!

What was she doing here?! And how long had she been listening?! Without even getting the answer from her, I knew that she had been here long enough to know that she heard my somewhat half-butted confession to Lon'qu. The room was completely silent, but there was an obvious storm raging coming from Say'ri's wrathful eyes alone. If I hadn't known about her feelings for Lon'qu I would be severely lost as to why she was angry with me, but knowing made it ten times worse. Why did she have to arrive here _right now_?!

"Lon'qu!" Say'ri snapped, scaring me. I thought she was totally going to rip my face off judging from that violent expression. Lon'qu looked over at her just as she grabbed onto his arm roughly, "I have to tell you something about kendo!" With that, Say'ri finally broke eye contact with me and dragged Lon'qu out of the room.

Once she was gone, I slunk deep into my seat with a sigh. Uneasiness swept its way down my body as I thought of that terrifying face Say'ri gave me. I may not have messed up the entire conversation with Lon'qu, but I completely ruined mine and Say'ri's relationship that we were only beginning to build.

Well, you know what they say, 'The course of love never did run smooth'.


	9. Chapter 9

You know what's really hard to do? Change your mind set when two very momentous things just happened to you. First, I figure out that Chrom's family has history with this school and the Plegians and secondly, Say'ri overheard my less than obvious confession to Lon'qu. It was difficult to go into the 'Shepherd's Leader' mode when I was still caught in the 'oh-crud-what's-going-to-happen-now-that-Say'ri-knows' mode.

Though, upon seeing everyone gathered in our meeting spot looking desolate that quickly made me glad and excited that I had happy news to share with them. I safely tucked what happened in Mr. Farber's class into the back of my head for the time being. Perhaps I'd ask Lissa about what I should do about my confession later.

"Guys!" I shouted, taking a place in the cafeteria table, "I've got something to tell you that will cheer you up instantly!"

The Shepherds certainly was eager to hear this, judging from the way their demeanor instantly changed. Sumia's eyes sparkled with delight, "You do?! What is it?!" I went on to explain everything I learned today – starting from meeting with that Plegian girl and ending with that I derived from the information I found on the internet. By the end of it, everyone was shocked, but thoughtful as they digested this information.

"So… it's no wonder Gangrel hates Chrom – since he's so faithful to the Plegian group, it would make him take it personally about what Chrom's relative did to them in the past." Frederick said, this hand on his chin.

"Not to mention what Gangrel plans to do if he becomes the Student Council President." Sully added, scratching the back of her neck with a frustrated look on her face. The others nodded in agreement, knowing now what Sully meant. Gangrel becoming Student Council President could spell the end of our days of attending Ylisse High.

"But we're not going to let that happen!" Sumia exclaimed with renewed vigor, "We're going to stop Gangrel by tailing him during after school hours and find out what deeds he had been performing there!" Everyone smiled in response – it was much better seeing Sumia like this rather than her being all mopey. Having that rosy-cheeked smile on her face suited her much more than a frown, "Teresa, let's go and tail him tonight! I want to get Chrom's name cleared out as soon as possible!"

"As do I." I agreed, "Very well, but we'll have to act fast: The people who I choose to come with me are Sumia, Sully, Frederick, Stahl and myself. Of the names I just called, I need you to go home for a moment and get changed into dark colors so as to remain hidden. You'll also need your phones and a voice recorder. Meet me back here when you're finished."

"All right!" Frederick, Stahl, Sully and Sumia all responded in synch. They all jumped up from their seats and proceeded home to gather their things and get changed.

"Donnel, Virion, Vaike and Lissa: As for all of you, I need you to keep an eye on Gangrel and feed us his location when we prepare to head out. Don't lose sight of him for a second and stay hidden – I'm trusting you. Here's my number; text me in about twenty minutes from now but if we're not ready, I won't respond until we are. Do you understand?"

"Clear as day, Teresa! All right, Recon Squad, let's move out!" Lissa answered energetically. With that, the five of them up and left me but I wasn't staying in the cafeteria for long. I got up and went home myself – my house was fairly close to the school which was lucky because I could change into dark clothes myself. When I had gotten into my all-black outfit, I waited for the crew to show up. Sumia was the first to return and had brought her phone which she told me had a voice recording app on it. Then Frederick showed up, then Sully and Stahl; since everyone had assembled, we waited for Lissa's text which came a little bit after we were all together.

'Gangrel and a bunch of Plegians headed downtown and just headed passed FireBucks; are you all ready to head out?' the text read. Immediately I replied.

'We are, keep an eye on him until we arrive.' I sent the text and tucked away my phone into my pocket as I faced the SSSF Crew and said, "They tracked him down to the downtown FireBucks, let's hurry over there!" With that, the five of us raced downtown, which turned out to be further away than we expected because by the time we reached FireBucks, we were all tuckered out. Though we couldn't afford to be leaning over with our hands on our knees and panting like we were a bunch of hounds when Lissa and her group approached us.

"Guys! You've got to hurry up – Gangrel's already made his way to the end of this road, you'll lose sight of him if you don't move it now!" Lissa told us.

"All right, thank you, Lissa, everyone. You can all go home now; we'll take care of it from here." I told them and Lissa nodded in agreement. Wishing us good luck, Lissa's group left to turn it in for the day while the rest of us charged down the road (but not without labored breaths) so as to not lose Gangrel. When we noticed Gangrel and his band of Plegians about to turn right into an alleyway on the street we were on, we seemed to forget about our tiredness and followed him relentlessly. We weren't about to let him get away!

We came to a sudden halt when we came to the corner that Gangrel just turned. We peered around the corner and noticed Gangrel and the Plegians followed by two guys that went to our school. Quietly, I gestured to Sumia to start up the app on her phone to record the conversation that Gangrel was already having with the two guys. She fumbled to start it up but eventually got it going and pointed it in their direction, but subtly to not arouse their attention.

"…the money that you owe to me?" A voice I identified to be Gangrel's asked. I furrowed my eyebrows, wanting to get in closer to hear more clearly, but I didn't want to blow our cover. I strained myself to listen harder instead.

"Hey man, we ain't got no money – you wiped us clean last time!" One of the guys in the alleyways protested worriedly, "There's no way we can keep up this 'cheating-in-school' thing. We won't pay you anymore and we won't cheat no more."

"What a shame… looks like you'll have to pay a cancellation fee. How does one more fifty dollars sound?" Gangrel coaxed, and I could almost see that greasy grin stretching across his face.

"We just told you we ain't got no more money! You tryin' to make us go broke?!" The other guy in the alleyway must have sound because his voice was different. I could barely contain myself at this find! This was great evidence! This was all so obvious, why didn't we think before to track him outside of school? A little more… a little more and Chrom's name will be cleared; and Gangrel will become the target for resentment for what he's doing right now! I could only hope that Sumia's voice recorder was capturing everything.

"Not at all, what I'm doing is only fair. After all, you wished to cheat in school and I obliged… for a price of course. My services aren't free, you know. You knew that from the very beginning and you're blaming me for you going broke?" Gangrel wondered.

"You're crazy, man! We oughtta report you to the police for robbin' us!" One of the guys said accusingly. I heard footfalls beginning to retreat, but suddenly they were halted.

"Ah-ah…! You promised your silence; are you breaking your oath now?" Gangrel said, "Because if you are, I just might have to remind you of what the consequences are if you told anyone of my actions."

"Back off! Leave our family's outta this!" One guy shouted.

"Then you'll swear your silence?" Gangrel asked.

"This is insane! We didn't sign up for this; we just wanted to get through school easy, but if this is what it takes I won't take it!" The other guy said. Once more, we could hear footsteps, but this time they were halted short followed by a scuffling across the ground and grunting. The guys shouted in pain, startling all of us who were listening. Though we were curious to see what was happening in that alleyway, we didn't want to spoil the information gathering.

One of the guys let out a pained cry when a grotesque _crunch_ was heard. The other guy screamed, saying, "Leave us alone, hey! We just don't want to fund your cheating anymore! Is that too much to ask?!" There was another _crack_ that I now recognized to be fingers cracking. What the heck was Gangrel doing to them in there?!

"Not only do you not pay my fee, but you also challenge the promise of your silence. That cannot go unpunished. But… if you do change your mind and keep your mouths shut, I might reconsider breaking _all _your fingers." Gangrel answered sinisterly. There was another finger broken, followed by a sickening pained cry, "Hurry up now and make your decision, unless you want your family to receive punishment as well. Of course, I'm fine with either–,"

"We'll do it! We'll do it!" One of the guys shouted through their pain, sounding really desperate at this point. I felt bad for not being able to do anything for them… especially when they were in such pain and faced with such a harrowing decision, "We'll do everything you ask: We'll pay you the fifty bucks, keeping our mouth shut and we'll even vote for you! Just… please… leave us alone…,"

Gangrel laughed, "That's more like it. You can release them now. I hope you two have learned your lesson and I'll look forward to you passing over that fifty dollars in let's say… a week from now?"

"Y-you got it! Anything you say…," The guy said with a defeated tone. Accidentally, I inched back from all the things I had heard going on in that alleyway, but I ran into Sumia. She was leaning forward to try and capture as much as she could and easily lost her balance when I bumped into her. Sumia fell forward, landing on her stomach and flopping into Gangrel's line of sight. Everyone in the alleyway whipped to where we were; but all I could find myself doing was staring at them with saucer-like eyes.

Not good.

"Who's there?!" Gangrel demanded, but we didn't even bother answering such a question as Frederick picked Sumia up from her armpits and quickly got her to her feet. With that, all of us began running for our lives. Behind us, Gangrel and the Plegians called for us to come to a stop but we weren't about to listen to such a stupid request. Thanks to that slip-up, our cover was almost blown, but if we could keep running fast enough we would get away without Gangrel knowing it was Chrom's friends who had caught him doing such a terrible thing.

I looked at my surroundings to try and find a place where we could lose them. With them so close behind us, it was going to be hard… especially when there was nothing to hide in like the woods… or… just as I was thinking of hiding places, a park with a ton of trees surrounding it came into view. Bingo!

"Guys! Into the park!" I called, "We'll try to lose them there!" They all agreed with me and we jumped the low-lying fence and dispersed to all find a separate hiding place. I took my place behind a nearby tree that was away from the streetlamps that were scattered around the park for late-night walkers, or whatever; but for me, I wanted to stay hidden as best as possible. Still, I peeked around the edge of the tree to see where Gangrel and the Plegians were to not get caught while breathing in and out heavily from all the activity. I tried to quiet my breathing when I saw them enter the park soon after I had found my hiding place.

"They couldn't have gotten far! Split up and search for them; we can't let anything leak!" Gangrel issued his orders firmly and the Plegians as well as himself began skulking around in search for us. I had to admit, I was beyond scared… who knew what Gangrel would do to us when he caught us. If he broke the guys finger's in the alleyway for not staying quiet and for not paying up his fee, I didn't want to _think _of what he'd do to us.

It was all I could do to stay completely still while Gangrel wandered over to where I was. I even held my breath in anticipation – if I wasn't covered by the darkness and most of me being covered by a tree, he probably would have spotted at me as he was basically staring right at me. Though he didn't relent, almost as if he knew I was there and was trying to scare the living daylights out of me – which was working. My hands shook where they were touching the tree; but I tried to count to ten in my head to calm myself, but when Gangrel just kept getting closer and closer, I found it a lot more difficult to remain my composure.

Soon Gangrel had made it to the treeline, uncomfortably close to where I was. Feeling the need to scoot over to a new hiding place to elude him, I went around to his blind spot and tiptoed away while keeping regular checks over my shoulder. Though, I forgot to consider the fact that there were twigs scattered throughout the forest ground because I snapped one and broke it into two when I stepped on it, alerting Gangrel right away.

I pressed my back to a tree right away again, knowing that he was probably making his way over to where the sound was as my heart rate climbed to a really high rate that I didn't even think was possible. My eyes were wide with fright and I was ready to run for the hills if the situation called for it.

Suddenly, Gangrel's form appeared beside me; I just stared with my mouth agape. Did he catch me?! Should I begin running now? After a few seconds went by, I relaxed a little, I don't think he noticed me standing there as he was staring straight ahead. Still, I didn't want to take any chances and I quickly went behind the tree so I would be out of his sight completely. As I did, Gangrel punched the tree I was using for cover so hard it shook, the leaves rattling out of the branches above. At first I thought he caught me until he started mumbling to himself.

"I don't care who it was that spied on us, I'm going to tear them to shreds all the same! If they tell anyone of what they saw…," Gangrel continued to mumble in such a cruel and bitter way that made me shiver at the details of the punishment he had in mind.

"Hey! What are you kids doing here? The parks closed at night!" A voice called. I turned around and noticed a couple of police officers shining their flashlights on some of the Plegians that were still looking around for us. Gangrel decided to go with the Plegians, luckily, and left the forest still without noticing my presence. I let out a silent sigh of relief and waited for them all to leave before leaving myself. I tried to listen in to the police officers and the Plegians answer in turn; I didn't quite know what they were saying but soon they were on their way. It was then that I came out from behind the trees, looking around before calling out:

"Guys?" I asked quietly. Probably recognizing my voice, they all came out from their hiding places. I was glad to see none of them were caught; that certainly was a close one… I knew I wouldn't be doing that again for a _long_ time.

"Jeez, you should have seen them skirting around the place! I thought they were going to catch me twice! Thank goodness you thought for us to wear dark clothes, otherwise we would have been caught for sure!" Sully sighed in relief.

"Yeah, I'm thankful for the clothing as well; Gangrel was so close to catching me that I thought my heart stopped for a moment." I chuckled nervously, "Anyway, I just want to check that recording again before we go back home to make sure it sounds coherent. Sumia?" We all turned to Sumia who dug through her pocket and pulled out her phone where she went to the voice recording app again. There, she replayed the recording and it was actually in really good quality.

"Perfect! Now, we've got Gangrel cornered!" Frederick rejoiced.

"We should celebrate this victory!" Sumia said suddenly, "Tomorrow's Saturday, so we could all hang out at… the Feroxi Mall! We could bring the whole gang; it'll be a great time!"

I nodded in agreement, "We should. After all the work we went through to get here, we deserve it. Text everyone you know and we'll all hang out together tomorrow."

"When should we meet?" Sully asked.

"How about twelve?" Sumia suggested.

"It's been decided." I said, "Tomorrow, we'll go to the Feroxi Mall at twelve to celebrate!" With that, all of us began walking back to our houses. Even though I was excited to go to the famed Feroxi Mall with all of my friends, for some reason there was something tugging at me. I didn't quite know what it was… but it was really disturbing me the entire walk back to my house. We had caught Gangrel in the act, what else could I have been missing? Well, hopefully it wasn't anything too important because I was going to forget about it for the time being, I was bushed from all of today's activities.


End file.
